#blithes ocs: thorn

[blithesrps]

Act II Scene I

“God, this is miserable. Wake me up when it’s over.”

Leona slumped in his chair, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the ornately papered wall, only to jerk upright with a grunt as Ruggie shoved his elbow into his side.

“Oh, no you don’t. This is your shindig, ain’t it?” he hissed, ignoring Leona’s scowl, “Jeez, all you gotta do is smile and dance a little and you’re set for life, and you can’t even manage…”

“I don’t see you rushing onto the dance floor,” Leona snorted, grudgingly sitting upright and gazing out over the room.

To be fair, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. It was kind of interesting having classmates from NRC at his home in the Sunset Savanna. It was under the guise of some sort of cultural exchange summer program, visiting the homelands of every housewarden to gain exposure or build character or some bullshit. Leona hadn’t minded showing some of his less-irritating classmates around. It was almost pleasant, when Falena wasn’t butting his nose where it didn’t belong.

He glanced at Ruggie, who hadn’t answered his last verbal barb, but the boy’s gaze had found Ara again in the crowd. Leona rolled his eyes, trying to hide a smirk. It was a bit amusing seeing Ruggie so smitten and unsure what to do about it. Leona had to admit, it had been nice having Ara around more often. Of the three of them, she was the only one who kept to the dance floor that evening, swapping partners as they requested and adapting easily to the different steps.

“What was the point of this dance anyway?” Ruggie mumbled under his breath, finally tearing his eyes away from Ara and turning them to the nearby buffet table. He’d gone through twice already but he planned on at least a third before he swapped to filling his pockets.

“Who knows. Some diplomatic bullshit, I’m sure.” Leona waved over a servant working at the edges of the crowd and stole one of the glasses from his tray, “Falena said something about visitors from across the sea.”

“Very specific.”

“What? You think I actually listen when Falena opens his big mouth?”

Ruggie snickered, before seeing an approaching figure and making his escape for the buffet table. Leona watched him shove off with mild amusement, ignorant to the danger approaching.

“There you are. Are you truly satisfied putting on this pathetic of a show this evening?”

“Hey, you,” Leona called to the retreating servant again, “Find me something sharp. Maybe if it drive it into my ears I can drown out his voice.”

“Very charming,” Vil replied dryly, hands on hips elegantly draped in an evening gown, “You have a duty you know. It wouldn’t kill you to rub elbows. Who knows, you may even find you enjoy it.”

“I’ll tell you what I’d enjoy: a lobotomy.”

Vil reached out and pinched the fat of Leona’s arm. He yelped and moved to swat him but Vil had already daintily stepped out of range.

“Very well, sit here and look miserable, see if I care,” he said loftily, “It’s just a shame when Ara is meeting so many new and interesting people…”

“The hell do I care what sort of people she meets?” Leona growled, but Vil didn’t answer, giving Ruggie a nod as the other boy returned with a full plate and a roll in his mouth and Vil floated back onto the dancefloor. Bastard.

“What was that about?” Ruggie asked, grinning at the look on Leona’s face. He laughed again, “You look like you swallowed a grub.”

Leona opened his mouth to snarl back, but stopped suddenly. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and his ears gave a flick, pressing back against his skull.

“Somethings wrong,” he hissed, eyes narrowing. Ruggie froze mid-bite, eyes shifting from face to face in the crowd as he tried to seek out what had Leona’s pelt ruffled. Something was happening at the front of the room, but they were too far away to hear. There was a sudden burst of applause that made him start, nearly jolting his plate from his lap.

Leona stood, lifting his chin to see over the shorter members of the crowd. He could just make out some sort of tall gentleman, with a trim grey beard and shaved head. At his side, a smaller figure, with long blond hair that hung straight over their shoulders.

Turning to try and skirt his way around the edges of the crowd, Leona nearly knocked into a new figure that had slipped silently to his side.

“Damn the gods, Rat!” he hissed to the younger boy, “I swear if Ara doesn’t put a bell around your neck…” He trailed off, sensing a change in the quiet boy that Ara had brought back from the Hive. Normally Rat would have shrunken under Leona’s irritation, muttering apologizes and wilting into the background as quickly as he could. Now though he was silent, amber eyes piercing as he took Leona’s scolding. He looked almost formidable, were it not for his pale pallor and the shaking of his fingers by his side.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Leona demanded, pulling the boy closer by the arm. Ruggie pressed in by his shoulder, listening even while he kept an eye out.

“Thorn,” Rat whispered.

“A thorn? What, you got pricked in the garden?” Leona said with growing frustration, giving the boy a shake. Rat didn’t react: his duty was to protect Ara’s pack and that was what he was doing.

Leona became aware that the music had started again, and for some reason that bothered him. Could no one else feeling the sense of wrongness? Did no one else sense some sort of danger in the wings? He swore again under his breath and returned to his mission of shoving his way to the front of the room.

“Go find Jack and bring him to me,” he ordered Ruggie.

“No, stay here,” Rat interjected, words firm enough to master his stutter. Leona and Ruggie stopped and stared at him. Rat’s face turned red but he did not retract his order.

“…are you drunk?” Leona asked, bewildered that the boy who had the piss scared out of him by his own shadow had dared to not only give an order, but one that directly refuted his own.

Rat opened his mouth to respond, but something distracted him and he snapped his jaw shut, eyes dilating with fear. Leona could smell it coming off him in waves, and he whipped his head around ready to face the terror.

Instead he saw only Ara. Ara and a stranger. The Queen was dancing with the diplomat, a few other somebodies following their lead. But Leona was sure that what had scared Rat was right in front of him, and somehow…

He understood.

The man looked like he wanted to eat her, with eyes that reminded Leona of a leopard who knew it had encroached on a pride’s territory. The two didn’t seem to be speaking, their dance measured and slow. Leona could see the muscles in Ara’s back flex each time the stranger drew her close. She was no longer smiling, her grey eyes locked on the stranger’s green as they slowly circled one another in accordance with the dance. It was as though neither dared look away and give the other a chance to strike.

“Who is that?” Ruggie asked, his own hackles rising, even if he didn’t understand fully why. Sure he wanted to be the one dancing with Ara (not a chance, he had no clue what these damn fancy steps were), but none of the other guys had bothered him like this.

“Thorn,” Rat murmured again. He watched as Thorn dipped Ara, the girl letting her head fall back, exposing her neck. Rat saw it was a Hivechild insult, a ‘you couldn’t slit my throat if you wanted to’, and Thorn knew it to, his grin widening even as his jaw clenched. His hands grew more demanding, moving her more quickly and squeezing her flesh meanly, pushing the edge of what was socially acceptable. He spun her, and leaned to murmur something in her ear, and this time Leona could see her face.

He did not like what he saw.

He was on the dance floor in four strides, breaking the hypnotic connection Ara and this Thorn had fallen into.

“Nice moves. It’d be a shame to keep them all to one girl, yeah?” he said, forcing a sharp grin on his face. He slid a hand down Ara’s arm, smoothly freeing it from Thorn’s grasp and pulling her from his hold. Leona got only a glimpse of a look of disgust on the man’s face, like Leona was nothing but a worm begging a hawk for the time, but it was quickly covered up by a mask of deference.

“Of course, your Highness,” he murmured, voice lower than Leona would have expected, “It is an honor to concede my dance to the prince. Or, no, forgive. A prince.” He straightened again smiling, giving Ara one last unreadable glance before turning to melt back into the crowd.

“Leona…my hand…”

Leona barely heard Ara’s whisper, immediately relaxing the crushing grip he had unknowingly inflicted on her hand. He pulled her to him, cupping her waist and glancing to find what step of the dance they were on before guiding her into movement. For a long moment neither spoke.

“Rat?” she finally asked softly.

“With Ruggie,” he responded in the same tone. He felt her relax slightly, though every muscle in her body still seemed ready to be attacked at any moment. Leona spun her, feeling a brief moment of regret that this was the circumstances under which they were dancing. It wasn’t half bad, to be honest.

“What’s his problem?” he mumbled into Ara’s ear.

“…long story,” she replied.

Somehow, Leona felt that might have been an understatement.

[blithesrps]

Ara: Black, or with a little steamed milk when she’s encouraged to try something fancy.

Rat: Black but with 6 sugar cubes

Yuuri: More of a tea drinker but she does love an iced flavored latte in the summer

How does your OC take their coffee?

.

[actualgina]

SO I SOLD MY BOOK

SO.

SO!!!

[Text: Publishers Weekly’s Rights Report]

I went into sub(mission hell) with a glorious mix of high hopes and low expectations, which was the only practical way I could process things: want for everything, expect nothing. My agent Elana sent emails out to editors and I descended into literal hell by playing Hades (I’ve since gotten the true epilogue, by the way).

Then a week later I get an email from Elana mentioning “fun news”—two hours after she sent it because I am a west coast timezone straggler.

I leapt out of bed! Crashed into the bathroom to brush my teeth! Fumbled for my phone!

The fun news: A PREEMPT!! OFFER!!

There were more fun details in the call and subsequent calls and emails that flew around, and this all happened very fast. This book couldn't be in better hands from my agent to my now-editor Hannah and the team at Delacorte. Hannah and I have been not-subtly circling each other ever since she read my short story “Fools” in Foreshadow. It was truly to my utter relief that she adored my manuscript, too, and we were both so excited to finally yell at each other (“You were watching me?? I was watching you??”).

The thing that I could have never prepared for is, after the deal settled in, I felt the next years of my life hurtle at me. Everything is about to change. Everything is not hypothetical anymore. The thing I'd been working forever toward—it's here. Oh my god.

Counting from the beginning, Violet Made of Thorns (formerly known as Vile Vile Violet) took four years, but the latest incarnation of my manuscript really only took root in 2019, and I completed most of it during the first half. I queried in 2020 and heavily revised for three months after signing with Elana. I'm big on big revisions, I love doing them, and I expected to do this one because it was only after this last version that I really adored this book.

If you know VMOT's inspiration though, you know it started nearly ten years ago, when I started writing a snarky contemporary fanfic just for fun.

I had only barely begun writing continuously, and I was still in my I-don't-like-writing-I-just-wanna-tell-stories phase (I was That Self-Taught Artist who wanted to make a webcomic as a teen, should’ve seen the signs). I wrote fanfic in the loosest sense: 98% of my characters were original characters or the most minor of canon, they just existed in a fandom space. The only reason I figured out I wanted to tell original stories was because I had such a supportive audience; that love was born from reader interaction. Though I keep a professional divide from my fanfic, I’ve always been open about referencing it, because without it, I wouldn’t be writing at all and besides, we’re well past thinking fanfiction is a taboo or inferior medium (and my opinion is people who do think that have no imagination re: storytelling or can’t fathom that some stories simply aren’t written for them).

The fic that inspired VMOT—it became so much more than I ever thought it would. I wrote an indulgently prickly gossip girl OC who reigns with a scathing pen and pursues a questionable relationship with the resident golden boy—and readers loved her! Okay, a lot of readers also said they hated her but also said they couldn't help but be hooked.

And as the story progressed, the silly satire became a more personal story, and so many people said they never read any character like her and that they felt seen for the first time. I got essays, y’all, legit hundreds of essays in the comments that I loved responding to (which I can’t do as a pro author, forewarning, but I appreciate any future essay writers) because I knew exactly what they meant, because I was writing about stuff I always wanted to see myself. The way ambitious (anti)heroines were rendered across media often left me wanting, coming across as wish fulfillment by and for people who didn't actually understand these characters. In this story’s case, I wanted to see ambition dissected uncomfortably, cynicism that can't be solved, romance for someone who didn't totally get romantic love, and everything tied up with a startling frankness.

So I decided to write these characters all over again, but in a completely original setting.

Writing an original second-world fantasy is very, very different from writing contemporary fanfic. I had to fill so many gaps in my skill I never had to deal with before. These last four years were spent learning how to worldbuild and introduce characters that an audience wouldn't have an automatic buy-in for and structure a story that wasn't serially written. While I worked on it, past readers would pop up and tell me they couldn't wait for me to get published while I'd be like "hahaha we'll see," because I knew the realities of publishing, but truly, it was the sweetest thing.

I don't know how many of you have been lurking all this time, but I'm glad that optimism hasn't been for naught and I will actually have a novel to show you after the long wait. This story is very different from the one you know. It's a love story. Like, really, actually, this time. And it's fantasy. Like, fantasy fantasy. It’s still blithe and bantery until it slingshots to serious (less about celebrity journalism and more about uh, complicity in imperialism and environmental destruction), but the plot, the words, the everything is different. The most obvious echoes come from the characterizations and those personal themes I wanted to explore, but even so, Violet isn't totally like her previous incarnation—and I never wanted her to be.

And I'm a much better writer now. Violet Made of Thorns is the best thing I've written. I hope it doesn't stay that way, because I have a lot more stories to tell, and also Book 2 to finish :)

Things you can do right now ♥️

Add Violet Made of Thorns to your Goodreads

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram and here, on Tumblr

Sign up for my nascent newsletter, if you prefer getting your news condensed and intermittently

Yell to your friends about this, to their utter confusion

[blithesrps]

Rat's Prologue II

“She’s dead, Rat. I killed her.”

“You’re lying,” Rat rasped, his stutter gone for the brief words as if it too had been frightened still. He watched Thorn’s lip curl, the larger boy squeezing his fingers more tightly around Rat’s throat.

“Dust is dead too, you know,” Thorn went on, shoving his knuckles up under Rat’s jaw until he gagged painfully for breath. Thorn snickered and shoved him to the ground, shaking his head with amusement.

“What are you going to do without your little guard dog, hm?” he asked, watching drool drip down Rat’s chin as the boy coughed painfully. God it was pathetic. He’d never understood why Ara had paid so much attention to him. Rat should have died when they were still in the nursery as far as he was concerned.

“She looked so scared when I shoved her off the ledge. It was hilarious,” Thorn laughed and pulled a face like Ara had when he’d ripped her wrists from the stone crag, eyes wide and teeth clenched. The fight she’d given had made his victory all the more fun, the betrayal in her eyes, the way she’d begged him to remember they were friends. What a joke.

“But hey, don’t worry, alright? Your big brother Thorn is here to protect you now,” he cooed, enjoying watching Rat's body tense at the sudden switch of tone. The boy flinched when Thorn struck, but not quickly enough, Rat’s fingers crunching under the heel of his boot. The boy squealed, and Thorn was tickled to find the sound comparable to the sound the actual rats he had crushed beneath his feet had made.

“God, you’re too pathetic,” Thorn snorted, Rat’s nails clawing uselessly at his leg. He let his weight linger, savoring the popping feeling as individual bones failed. Rat said something in reply, something Thorn couldn’t make out through the snot and tears.

“What was that, Ratty boy?” he hummed, crouching down, “I couldn’t hear you, kiddo.”

“I s-s-said, she’s n-n-n-not d-d-dead,” Rat choked out, “She’s s-stronger than you and-d when she c-c-comes back she’ll k-k-kill you.”

Thorn was silent, then stood, kicking Rat’s uninjured hand off his ankle and stomping his boot down on it. Rat cried out, and Thorn resisted the urge to kick him in his pathetic face. But he didn’t want to kill Ara’s little pet so quickly. Where would be the fun in that?

“You keep on dreaming, Ratty boy,” he hissed, lifting his boot at last and allowing Rat to clutch his hands against his stomach. “Let her come back. I’ll just kill her all over again.”

He turned and stalked off down the tunnels, leaving Rat to weep in the dirt and wonder which of them would prove right in the end.

[blithesrps]

🌌 MILKY WAY - what was the inspiration behind your oc? what was the first thing you decided about them?

For any OC that you feel like answering this for~

Doing these in between tarot breaks <3 THANK YOU BB

It's funny because I don't always like start out with a straight inspiration for my OC's. Usually someone pipes up and I start fleshing them out working backward.

I think I've mentioned this before but Ara started as a self insert character but quickly made her own story known. She has bits and pieces of OC's from my past, and in a more distant way I think I was definitely inspired by Beka Cooper from the Tamora Pierce trilogy, who shares her stoic and dogged nature.

Rat and Thorn were side characters that became more important as Ara's story revealed itself, though I did specifically create Thorn to be a narrative foil for her. All I knew from the start was that I wanted him to be CRUEL and UNREDEEMABLE and then I ended up redeeming him in the end anyway ope my heart is weak...

For the next gen kiddos, Falla and Gigi came to really easily. I knew Falla shared her mother's sort of controlled emotional front, with her Father's appreciation for botany. Despite being the first to come to, Falla is the next gen kid whose really spoken to me the least, so it's been a pleasure having her speak up more recently. I knew Gigi was going to be a tomboy whirlwind character from the start too, and I knew she idolized her dad, Ruggie.

The twins were, unsurprisingly, incredibly secretive and hush hush about who they were. Before they even got their names though Kana made herself known as the sort of trail blazer, the one calling the shots, and I knew she was feverishly ambitious. For a long time I wasn't even sure if she would have a twin as Ton would sort of ebb in and out quietly. I knew he was a boy and that was it. Eventually though they started to share bits and pieces and once they met @cyanide-latte 's Talesin it was love at first sight and they sort of exploded onto set like it had been the dramatic opening they'd been waiting for.

Asmina was next and the first thing that became clear was that she was a FUCKIN NERD. Highly anxiety, tightly wound. The first two things I knew about Olivine was that she was bigender, and wretchedly shy, though almost immediately she struck up a friendship with Kit (also Cy's) and that eased quite a bit of her shyness.

SIGH I love creating original characters and letting them blossom and grow through interacting with others. One day I'll make a side blog for my original story characters to share with you all.

[blithesrps]

Of Thorn

CONTENT WARNING: violence, gore, killing, violence to animals

Thorn liked killing things.

It started when he was a child. Frustrated with being unable to protect his friends and needing to express that somehow, he would smash his tiny fists onto beetles and crush his bare feet down on ants. As he grew older, stronger, more capable, his anger no longer provided an excuse: he just enjoyed it. Killing broke up the monotony of the Hive, provided some control over his tiny dull life.

When the bugs got boring, he moved on to the rats and reptiles that slithered through the tunnels. He would practice his stalking, moving silently in the shadows until he was close enough to pounce. Sometimes he’d kill them accidentally, squeezing his fists too tight upon capture, but as he honed his abilities, he was able to keep them alive longer. Play with them. Explore their insides, find out what made them go.

He tried to show Ara one time, thinking she’d be impressed by his skill. The look of disgust on her face never left him, the way he watched as her opinion of him shifted permanently. It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t been doing anything wrong. If their lives were disposable, why were the vermin they lived beside any more precious? Why did she have to look at him like that?

After that, when Dust attempted to explain things to him, Thorn tried to stop. It wasn’t that big of a deal, he decided. It’s not like he couldn’t find better things to do. If his friends didn’t want him to kill things, fine, he wouldn’t kill things.

But that was the year they left the nursery, and things in the greater Hive were much different. There, you didn’t eat if you couldn’t protect your meal tokens. You didn’t sleep if you couldn’t fend off someone trying to force their way into your bed. You didn’t survive if you weren’t willing to fight for your life.

That was the start of the distance that grew between Thorn and the others. When he went hunting for smaller Hivechildren, returning with a handful of meal tokens to share, they were disapproving instead of pleased. When he tried to get Ara to sleep with him in his cell, to protect her, she reacted with distaste instead of affection. When he killed his first Hivechild, slitting her throat in one delicious stroke after he caught her stalking stupid, pathetic Rat, he was faced again with that look of disgust on his friend’s faces. Dust didn’t try to talk to him this time. They just quietly slid away, through his fingers like smoke, as if they’d never been his to begin with.

So Thorn stopped caring. If they were going to look down on him regardless, he may as well get to enjoy himself. It was more fun killing Hivechildren than vermin anyway. They actually gave him a challenge, a chase, a fight. It was fun to cut into their bellies and see what was inside, discover in them how he himself worked as well.

It wasn’t like he was the only one who killed. Only the strong, the quick and the clever survived the Hive. At least he cleaned up after himself, dragging the bodies to the Pit rather than letting them rot where they lay like some of his Brothers and Sisters did. Sure, he fucked with Rat sometimes, but he didn’t kill him even when it would have taken nothing for him to do so. He didn’t challenge Ara or Dust unless it was during a Test, and even then, he never resorted to dirty tricks.

He held himself back. Kept himself nicely restrained. And still they treated him like a rotten thing.  

Eventually Thorn got sick of trying. If they wanted him to be rotten, then he’d be rotten. He found other Hivechildren who liked his skill, wanted his protection. He allowed himself to dig deeper into the depravity that was possible by his hand. He worked to become quicker, more ferocious, stronger, braver, meaner, colder, better…

Better.

He decided then that he’d kill his friends. Rat first, then Dust, then Ara last. He’d lay in bed and fantasize about it, dream about how it might come about and what they might do. Sometimes when he hunted a particularly feisty Brother or Sister, he’d imagine they were Dust or Ara instead. It wasn’t the same, but it kept him patient. He knew it would be worth it when he could finally shut up Rat once and for all, see Dust fold under Thorn’s leadership and power. Show Ara just why she was stupid to forsake him, how much better things would be if they joined forces instead.

In the end, Dust died first, and it wasn’t as fun as Thorn had hoped. It was enjoyable, certainly, but the older boy never really fought him properly. All Dust wanted to do was talk. He hadn’t thought Thorn was serious about killing him until he slid the blade between his ribs exactly where Thorn knew his heart would be. Even then, Thorn didn’t get the look of admiration or even betrayal that he’d been hoping for. Dust just looked heartbroken, and it pissed Thorn off.

Maybe that was why he’d been sloppy with Ara. He had let his emotions get the better of him. He’d been planning on keeping her properly for a while, maybe just breaking some of her bones so she would fucking stop running from him and listen. Instead, she had come at him like a thing possessed, and he’d had to shove her off the ledge just to ensure he wouldn’t be the one who died there.

The look of fear on her face when she realized she dangled above the river did give him a rush. It wasn’t as nice as the adoration and acknowledgement he had wanted, but it wasn’t bad at all. Later, when he touched himself to the memory, he still got off, even if it wasn’t as good as some of the other fantasies he’d had about her.

So it came to be that little Rat was the last one standing. Thorn almost had to laugh at the irony of it all. He decided he’d stretch out Rat’s torment, as a compromise with himself and a tribute to the memory of Ara and Dust. He regretted that he’d been too quick with the other two, and he learned his lesson well. He could wait.

But this time, Thorn waited too long. It was only a short year later before Rat was gone. But it was alright, as this time his loss brought with it a better gain. Hivechildren do not have gods, but Thorn could almost have believed in one when the whispers began that it had been Ara who had taken Rat. That not only she was alive, but strong and healthy and burning with a fire of retribution. Whispers that one day she’d be coming back for them all. It was like he’d been born again, the blood rushing through his veins hot and eager to spill.

And this time, when they met each other, Thorn would be ready.

[blithesrps]

Thorn Hiveson

[blithesrps]

The Gang Joins a Club

Ara: Pop Music Club, Track and Field

Rat: Equestrian Sports

Yuuri: Science Club (robotics/mechanics)