bootstrapsbillturner

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Chapter 2 is up!

I'll be honest, this is probably the weakest chapter. But it's done and all the good stuff is after this point :D

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sun haven

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Wonderful arts by Sirmiffed on reddit.

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https://archiveofourown.org/works/66514090/chapters/171547714

First chapter of my big fic, Embers of the Past, is now up! I'm really proud of this story and I'm excited to share it. Here's a little preview:

The girls continue playing but a terrible thought crosses your mind.

Having to move. The reason they had to move.

The fire.

[...]

When did the fire happen? How fast do Wolf Amari age?

Was it the same fire?

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Not dead, just bad at motivation. But I did get permission from cousin for rewrite of Protector of the Small! Let's see if I get to it before the kids are the same age as Kel XD

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Yeah. I think part of why I think this series would be a good fit for them is that they're starting to reach the age where they're thinking for themselves a lot more but there's still so much generally that they should listen to their parents about. And right now that's expressing itself as fighting with their parents but also being very controlling in the kind of games they're playing.

So I'm really worried about them turning into Joren at this point, and I think having Kel as an example of dealing with those kinds of frustrations and how it can actually help to pick your battles will be good with the combo of Joren's behavior being explicitly portrayed as villainous. The defying tradition part may make it a harder sell to the parents but framing it as emphasizing standing up to bullies and knowing when to argue and when to let it go is going to be beneficial. Especially because we have already discarded some gender roles for them by having the boys pick up hobbies from both grandparents instead of just grandpa.

I may be neglecting my Sun Haven fic, but I am strongly toying with doing a re-write of Protector of the Small for my cousin's kids (they're trying to avoid exposing the kids to magic and the series honestly feels tailor-made for what they might be looking for and would benefit from right now). Almost finished reading First Test, and finally messaged my cousin to see if she'd be interested in it.

Honestly, it'd be a good writing exercise even if the low-level magic of it is enough that I could read it to them as is. I just suspect a rewrite is more true to the spirit of the law than the letter of it - it'd be easy for them to see the series and then try to pick up the other Tortall books and those are WAY more magical. Which, I'd love for them to give up on the "no magic" bit, I think it's likely stunting the kids' creativity, but it's not my place. And since I've thought of it, I'll absolutely mention that possibility to my cousin if she's sounding more okay about it.

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It's funny, because I came to Tamora Pierce much too late in life to actually be molded by her work, but it still works and connected with me in an interesting way. I see a lot of myself in Kel, but I think she does things better than I do. But maybe also when I read her series initially, I didn't understand as much about people as I do now and so reading it again, I can better see how it would impact someone young and what lessons I can learn from it as an adult.

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tamora pierce books are a hug

i’m rereading some right now — at first to refresh because i want to write a daja/kel fic — but i forgot how these books soothe my soul. the way she writes friendship and growth is so important so chefs kiss.

i love how she writes character arcs — both negative and positive. like everyone has the capacity for change (wyldon of cavall) but not everyone will, and sometimes people get worse (joren of stone mountain). in will of the empress berenene has multiple chances to stop being The Worst and gets Worse — but in a way that is understandable, believable, and human. it adds such texture to the books. and some people like king jon in keladry’s books are protagonist and antagonist.

the adult mentors are so real and varied: niko, frostpine, rosethorn, vedris, lark, myles of olau, sir raoul, wyldon. they joke, they laugh, they make mistakes — like real people instead of caricatures.

and tammy’s stories build on each other like stone after stone in a foundation — like when kel is going to scanra to save her people it is so believable that all of her friends ride after her because kel has four books worth of proving she is the type of leader people would do that for. tammy understands her characters and their motivations so well.

also owen of jesslaw plsss i would die for him

in conclusion: i genuinely think reading these books as a kid was so vital to me and they should be required reading for everyone

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Yeah, the chamber is definitely going to be a problem. I'm also worried about Dainne's animal magic and its interaction with helping Peachblossom calm down. I think there's a possibility of including some "unexplained phenomena" if I trend it more towards Christian-religious (but given the fundamentalism involved already, I think there's a danger to doing so and I don't know that I want to go down that route). It's probably something to discuss more with them on how to handle.

I also haven't heard back from my cousin yet (which is unusual), so it's entirely possible I may have caused a Conversation (tm) based on how I went about asking.

I may be neglecting my Sun Haven fic, but I am strongly toying with doing a re-write of Protector of the Small for my cousin's kids (they're trying to avoid exposing the kids to magic and the series honestly feels tailor-made for what they might be looking for and would benefit from right now). Almost finished reading First Test, and finally messaged my cousin to see if she'd be interested in it.

Honestly, it'd be a good writing exercise even if the low-level magic of it is enough that I could read it to them as is. I just suspect a rewrite is more true to the spirit of the law than the letter of it - it'd be easy for them to see the series and then try to pick up the other Tortall books and those are WAY more magical. Which, I'd love for them to give up on the "no magic" bit, I think it's likely stunting the kids' creativity, but it's not my place. And since I've thought of it, I'll absolutely mention that possibility to my cousin if she's sounding more okay about it.

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Reading through the tag on Tumblr, I may be screwed XD Not sure how I'm going to deal with The Chamber.

...

Well. That might be a later problem XD

I may be neglecting my Sun Haven fic, but I am strongly toying with doing a re-write of Protector of the Small for my cousin's kids (they're trying to avoid exposing the kids to magic and the series honestly feels tailor-made for what they might be looking for and would benefit from right now). Almost finished reading First Test, and finally messaged my cousin to see if she'd be interested in it.

Honestly, it'd be a good writing exercise even if the low-level magic of it is enough that I could read it to them as is. I just suspect a rewrite is more true to the spirit of the law than the letter of it - it'd be easy for them to see the series and then try to pick up the other Tortall books and those are WAY more magical. Which, I'd love for them to give up on the "no magic" bit, I think it's likely stunting the kids' creativity, but it's not my place. And since I've thought of it, I'll absolutely mention that possibility to my cousin if she's sounding more okay about it.

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I think that's part of the point :) It's Pierce's way of teaching us how to endure, how to subvert the system. Kel isn't perfect, but she is perfect for this situation and can serve as an example for those of us that aren't.

We don't have to be as good as Kel. But we do need to understand why Kel is good.

Keladry of Mindelan at age 10 is a better human that I am as a grown-ass adult woman. When she finds out that Joren handed her a weighted lance, my first instinct would have been to figure out how to use the totally bullshit patriarchal martial power structures to end his ass. Kel though? She gets past the emotional reaction admirably fast and then jumps right to "How do I make this work FOR me?"

This girl has her eye on the goddamn prize and I respect the hell out of that. But I would have found a way to beat Joren to paste, because I am not as good a human as 10-year-old Kel.

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I may be neglecting my Sun Haven fic, but I am strongly toying with doing a re-write of Protector of the Small for my cousin's kids (they're trying to avoid exposing the kids to magic and the series honestly feels tailor-made for what they might be looking for and would benefit from right now). Almost finished reading First Test, and finally messaged my cousin to see if she'd be interested in it.

Honestly, it'd be a good writing exercise even if the low-level magic of it is enough that I could read it to them as is. I just suspect a rewrite is more true to the spirit of the law than the letter of it - it'd be easy for them to see the series and then try to pick up the other Tortall books and those are WAY more magical. Which, I'd love for them to give up on the "no magic" bit, I think it's likely stunting the kids' creativity, but it's not my place. And since I've thought of it, I'll absolutely mention that possibility to my cousin if she's sounding more okay about it.

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sun haven villager: oh hey nice to see you dude whats up

the farmer:

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I can't be the only person that thought there was something suspicious about Emmett, right?

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Not dead (not that anyone is following yet), just trying not to hype something before I'm ready. I'm very excited to share this next story with the world, I just need to get there.

I'm getting bogged down in the finer details. Which probably means I should elide them and just be done, but we'll see

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for me?

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Of course four days after I post my first fic, they finally update the game for 1.4.

Good thing I tagged it with the release, I guess. Ah well! Excited to play the new story bits! I already have a new ship idea (Karish, you are EXACTLY my type and that's terrible . . . but please don't stop)

Working on a short little fic to test the waters and see how I like this setup.

Watch this space if you care about these tags!