#neuxue writes fic

[redbelles]

74, 76, 77?

74. do you have a fic you wish got a bit more love?

i will admit that i'm a little bummed to have written a yuletide fic that the recipient (still active on other platforms) does not even appear to have read, but! life happens! trying not to take it personally!

76. how do you deal with writing pressure, whether internal or external?

answered here!

77. why do you enjoy writing fanfiction?

because i'm insane. next question. i kid, i kid! (not really.)

okay genuinely though: because i enjoy engaging with media that i care about, and i love the community that exists around fic/fandom. i've spent the last fifteen years dealing with an illness that periodically leaves me homebound; for big stretches of time in high school and college, my only connection to the world was through the internet. reading and writing fic was more than just a creative outlet for me back then— it was one of the only ways i got to meaningfully interact with people who weren't my parents or my doctors. fic led me to some really amazing people first on lj and then later on tumblr, several of whom i've since been lucky enough to meet irl. lots of love to @jacyevans @karenpage @hyperphonic and @urulokid for being my internet-turned-irl buddies 🩶

and you know what? extra special shoutout to @neuxue and @sluttyhenley for knowing me irl first and then following me into the trenches on al gore's internet; truly, u are god's strongest soldiers

send me some fic writing asks!

[neuxue]

Hey, remember when I used to occasionally write fic? 

Summary 

“Don’t cry, little one,” Bai Wuxiang murmurs, voice gentle once more behind that cry-smiling mask, rounding the altar and bringing the point of the sword to rest just above the wreckage. “It is for your own protection as much as mine. What a pity it would be, if you destroyed yourself before you could learn. How sad it would be, if you spent yourself fighting me instead of helping him.”

Or: Bai Wuxiang comes back into the cave in the aftermath of ch190, and Wuming will do anything to save his god.

Notes

You know how you read chapter 190 and thought ‘wow that’s fucked up I hope it gets even worse’? Yeah me too.

We’re in dead dove territory here! This fic is dark and there is… approximately nothing in the way of comfort except for the knowledge that canon does pick up where this leaves off so it will eventually get better. Probably.

(Sometimes the tags on a fic make it look worse than it actually is. This is... the opposite of that).

6.5k

[difeisheng]

First Line Meme

I was tagged by @neuxue, thank you!

Rules: List the first lines of the last ten (10) stories you published. Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if  anyone else notices any. Then tag some friends.

1. "Do you know why we are called the Jiang?" A-Die asked Jiang Cheng, when he was very little. (welcome to the storm)

2. Lan Xi is seven when his mother, with her purple robes and clarity bell, pulls him aside from Yuan-ge and asks, "Would you like to become a Jiang?" (Ozurie)

3. Nights give Wen Ning too much time to think. (Querinous)

4. Nie Huaisang always had an eye for beautiful things, and Mo Xuanyu was beautiful. (come back and haunt me (rush to the start))

5. It is six months after A-Song's death when Jiang Wanyin suddenly asks her, "Do you know how to defend yourself?" (to be ungentle)

6. Whatever Wen Ning expected when he followed Jiejie to Cloud Recesses, sitting alone beside a very anxious, very confused, possibly angry Jiang Wanyin was not it. (all of this mess (is just my attempt))

7. Some days Wen Ning thinks Wei Wuxian might love him. (honey, there is no right way)

8. The end of it all will be a casket of gold, and sheets draped over a body with a hole in its chest, and a man of violet lightning wondering where it all went wrong, but it starts at Cloud Recesses. (didn't want us to burn out)

9. "It's been two years," Wanyin says abruptly one evening. (won't run away (we're here to stay))

10. It is his last night at the hotel, and Jiang Cheng is... tired. (On The Borderline, Tonight)

Patterns: One thing I know I do a lot with my writing is to let the first sentence/line be dramatic, and left as a stand-alone paragraph. That's the case for 8/10 of the fics here. I also in general like to start by landing right in the middle of a scenario, instead of meandering or providing a couple paragraphs of backstory/context before cutting to the chase. If there's lead-up, it's the first sentence itself that provides that. Tell me if you notice anything else!

Tagging (if you haven't done this already and only if you want): @gusu-emilu, @eldritch-elrics, @lady-of-the-lotus, @veliseraptor

[sluttyhenley]

first line meme

Tagged by: @neuxue thank you!

Rules: List the first lines of the last ten (10) stories you  published. Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if  anyone else notices any. Then tag some friends.

1. Hardison replays the video footage he pulled from CCTV. Someone erased it and did a pretty good job, too. However, Hardison is very good at what he does and nothing in the cloud is ever truly gone, even when it’s deleted. - The Immortals Job

2. Sassy walks away with Ted after the funeral. It’s funny, well maybe not funny exactly, but almost everything Rebecca has told her about him seems to focus on his eternal optimism, the way he lights up the space around him. - the loneliness calls

3. Eddie’s beginning to wonder why he ever agreed to come out tonight. He could be at home, with Christopher, not watching Buck doing his usual routine. It’s not like it’s just the two of them, though. Everyone came out tonight; Eddie’s still not quite sure how Buck pulled that off. - come closer baby i can’t hear you

4. Booker is absolutely going to drive Nile insane. She’s sure of it. And if Booker doesn’t drive her insane then the absolutely, completely unsubtle jokes from Joe and Nicky about Booker being a cunning linguist will do it. - la petite mort

5.  “I’m going with you.” That’s what they do. They have each other’s backs, they go into danger together. - a kiss, an apology

6. It’s late and Christopher is in bed and Buck knows he should leave. He knows it like he knows that he was born to be a firefighter, knows it like he knows the cost of trying to be anything else. This is what they do every time. - playing chicken with our emotions

7. The bar is loud and dark and Nile is tired from a week of classes and she is starting to wish she had just stayed home, but she’d feel bad about leaving now. - let’s get lost (and let the good times roll)

8. Joe is running late for this meeting. He had hit the gym to work out some of his frustrations with Booker, his best friend and his media manager. Or, at least, that’s what he’s telling himself. If he’s being honest, he’s less frustrated with Booker than he is with himself. - reasons wretched and divine

9. Nicky isn’t normally type to sit in bars by himself. However, he doesn’t quite feel like going home yet. So he’s sitting in the hotel bar nursing a beer and re-running his disastrous blind date in his mind. - lover be good to me

10. Yusuf walks through the streets of Cairo, returning from his morning at the madrasa. He has come to enjoy studying with the scholars, keeping up with modern thought, and distracting himself from thoughts of the man he’s been traveling with since the sack of al-Quds. - no more complicated (than a kiss like this)

i think what we can see from this is that writing the beginning/opening is my least favorite part of writing fic. and that i tend to open with short sentences that heavily rely on the rest of the paragraph to give you any information about what’s coming. and that i just kind of jump right in. exposition whomst? i don’t know her

tagging: @energievie, @nevermindirah, @ongreenergrasses, @sadbitchapologist, and @sindirimba only if y’all feel like it/haven’t already done this one and anyone else who wants to

[veliseraptor]

i wish you'd write a fic where mu qing and hua cheng fucked against their better judgement

another one for the "I wish I'd write this fic too, anon" folder! because yeah I wish I'd write this fic too. there's not enough bad idea mu qing/hua cheng complicated proxyfucking (not that I think mu qing even wants to fuck xie lian! I don't think he does! but still, that's the vibe) in the world.

for some reason writing tgcf fic scares me though.

this would certainly be a hell of a place to start

(also hey @neuxue another subscriber to our newsletter)

[send me an ask finishing the sentence “I wish you’d write a fic where…”]

[paradife-loft]

First line meme

Tagged by: @neuxue - thanks! :D

Rules: List the first lines of the last ten (10) stories you published. Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if anyone else notices any. Then tag some friends.

*cracks knuckles* Okay, let’s do this and... try not to feel bad about the fact that I only wrote six fics last year and only broke 10k words by the grace of one of them being longer because it was for an exchange :’)

---

1. Time has slowed for them many times before: that's not new. They have a contempt born of familiarity for the torture of endurance. - (like I need a downpour) 2. In truth, the entire affair is strange. He knows, he is very intimately aware, that in a grand house such as this, much of the daily work of childrearing is placed on servants; that in the absence of the child’s parents, there’s even less of a place for a barely-accepted younger uncle to insert himself into the care of the house’s suddenly-much-more-important young heir. - (A shield for tender parts)

3. Meng Yao has sold almost all of his things, all the ones he could bring with because they were properly his - rather than scattered trappings of the Unclean Realm’s vice-envoy, inhabited like a borrowed shell - on the way down from Qinghe. - (For worse I can’t condone)

4.  Even though it would’ve been perfectly acceptable to receive Clan Leader Jin at the gates to Lotus Pier proper, Jiang Cheng has decided today to take advantage of the lack of other guests arriving at all hours, and meet Lianfang-zun and their nephew down at the docks in the town instead. - (Friends of empty graves)

5. "Er-ge. Are you sure nothing is bothering you today, besides the usual small matters? You’ve seemed distracted all through dinner. I know you said everything at Gusu is fine and your brother’s just returned, but if there’s anything at all…” - (Avoidance)

6. When the incense has finished burning, when a portion of the smoke has dissipated and a greater silence has descended on this secluded chamber in Golden Scale Tower given over, these past few days, to a distorted recapitulation of a funeral process - Jin Guangyao does not look surprised, nor does he object, to see you rise and, even hesitantly, begin to approach your elder brother’s body. - (The orchard and the soil)

7. A little girl was staring at him. He almost dropped the bark he was holding back into the jar when he noticed, and then froze like that for a few moments. - (learn to linger)

8. When a-Ling had been checked over once more for injuries; the Jin servants disappeared upstairs to help put him to bed; and the innkeep paid for the meal and rooms - Jin Guangyao found himself unusually alone, in the waning candlelight, with Jiang Wanyin. - (Worth)

9. “I can lend you spiritual energy if you want it.” - (Cradle)

10. Jin Guangyao had seen how the brothers and eldest son of Sect Leader Ceng had looked at the baby. - (Calibration)

---

Hmm, well. As far as similarities go, it definitely feels like there’s a ~vibe~ here, though I’m hard-pressed to actually identify what it is. I definitely don’t do snappy prose, and I like to abuse the power of subclauses, but I think that’s true of my writing generally (especially given whose POVs I tend to end up writing from). I don’t often open with dialogue, and at least from this sample, when I do it seems to be for the pieces where the physical and exact temporal settings are not terribly relevant. Which is probably related to the fact that otherwise, I seem to like trying to cram cues to as much of said setting as I can into the first couple sentences? (Jin Guangyao likes establishing context; He Xuan apparently hates it.)

If anyone else notices anything interesting, lmk for sure; it’s kind of fascinating to look at pieces of several different fics all at once here XD I know I often feel like the opening lines are something I hate writing and mostly just want to slap on the beginning and move on from, even though they are objectively kind of important as a part of any given piece. I suppose looking at a whole batch of them here, I feel like I hate them quality-wise a little less? They’re not as bland and shitty as I usually feel like they are when I’m trying to drag them kicking and screaming out of my brain, anyway. So that’s something~

tagging..... let’s say @pyr0clast and @stripedroseandsketchpads, and then run away while I’m ahead before I start overthinking this. (and of course anyone else who wants to play!)

[beyond-far-horizons]

hi! i just saw your post about writing out headcanons for your aol fanfic and YES!!! If you did write them out I’d definitely be interested ❣️

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?! Seriously no-one is around from the old fandom and I feel so alone lol.

Ugh just had the worst 24 hours with a plumbing disaster and now I need to do the 'covid clean' post workman visit so not quite in the best place to do this but will try. Also there will be spoilers for the fic obv but with the way life is going who knows when im going to be able to post that!

Age of Legends headcanons for my fanfic.

Ilyena is an Aes Sedai (this has been implied by Word of Jordan)

She's around Moghedien's age, maybe a little older, between her and Mesaana so around 250- ish mid Collapse at the time of the fic and 300ish at her death (about 100 years younger than LTT, Barid Bel and Elan Morin.)

She specialises in Ter'angreal making (thanks to that great post someone made years ago and also because I love ter'angreal and would totally specialise in this if I could. She is also an artist who paints both physically and with the One Power.

Her hero is Jorlan Corbesan that Rand mentions to Cadsuane in TOM(?) He didnt die in the Sharom Trajedy as per canon and still leads the Centre for Ter'Angreal Studies along with several eminent Aes Sedai. Ilyena is not part of this elite group yet but her brother Talen was. Talen's tragic death going through the Rings ter'angreal (the one the Wise Ones use) before it was properly tested pre Sharom deeply affected Ilyena causing her to withdraw from her ambitous pathway and also from intimate relationships although she has a wide circle of friends being a very gregarious person.

Talen's death is a mystery but what is known is that he was very close with Elan Morin Tedronai pre Collapse. They were actually a couple despite many people side-eying how someone so bright and people-loving could be with someone known for his detachment and rationality. (Spoiler Elan Morin is sabiosexual and virtually asexual in my fic but when he falls, he falls hard.)

Elan Morin is a Dreamer (this is key to the story and I think RJ would have gone this way). @neuxue I think you had this headcanon too?) He heads up a secret Ajah within the Aes Sedai focused on the increasing dire Dreams and Foretellings that have amassed since just before the Sharom Tragedy. He has impounded any Ter'angreal that may have precognitive functions. Graendal (cant find her AOL name whilst on my tablet) is also part of the Ajah as she was treating some of the first Dreamers driven mad and suicidal by their visions.

Barid Bel Medar has been friends with Ilyena for decades and is a kind of mentor to her. He is also deeply in love with her but doesn't press the matter out of respect. They have a strong friendship and unspoken chemistry. She is unsure of her feelings for him mainly because of her reluctance to become involved in relationships and also because....well the guy is very intense! Even when he's on the Light he's intense. She feels like she'd be consumed by him...but would that be a bad thing??

Lews Therin has not yet met Ilyena but he has been virtually lifelong friends with Barid Bel and by friends I mean blood brothers/ shonen rivals. The competition is ingrained by now. He is one of the Rods of Dominion, currently outshining Barid Bel as the Spire of Paraad Disen (but not by much).

The world has been increasing racked by unrest and violence but no-one knows why. Riots, plagues, droughts have increased and faith in the current order is waning. This is excerbated by various cults such as The Promise of Freedom and various high profile figures calling for a new order and casting doubt on Aes Sedai and the egalitarian system. Even Chora trees are starting to be suspected as pacifers etc.

There is harsh disagreement about how to deal with these things in the Hall of Servants and World Government as minor wars have started to break out and people call for peacekeeping forces including channelers (unthinkable a few decades before).

Barid Bel, whilst highly respected as a leader and tactician, has also come under a shadow as he is increasingly being held up as a guru of warfare having discovered and popularised the subject about a century ago (ironically he was just looking for a way to distinguish himself against LTT and back then it was just interesting historical research that became a very popular series of books and lectures. )

Ilyena comes up with a way of both clearing her friend's notoriety and helping him gain control over the situation (not to mention tweaking the nose of the great Lews Therin who she doesnt really approve of give all Barid Bel has said about him over the years). She proposes a grand exhibition - The Art of War where they can showcase warfare to draw interest and then show people why it was a bad idea (no spoilers here but I got some cool things planned!) It is at this gathering alot of the major players meet - a Web of Destiny!

Ilyena and Mierin know each other independently which I won't spoil. Ilyena feels she has been unfairly treated over the Sharom Tragedy. Barid Bel is not a fan of Mierin, both because he takes Lews Therin's side and because he's never quite forgiven her for her dismissive behaviour towards him at the Academy when he maaaay have had a crush on her.

As an aside Barid Bel and Duram Ladden (Be'lal) trolling Lews Therin over Mierin and Ilyena is hilarious to think about. My Be'lal is turning out to be a really fun character as opposed to the non entity Moiraine took care of in Book 3.

At some point I just want Barid Bel and LTT to put their rivalry aside and get roaring drunk together somewhere. I think they really did have a close friendship at one point (mainly because it would hurt all the more with the angst and then the betrayal and in fiction Im here for that!)

[elan-morin-tedronai]

4, 21, 27 for the fanfic writer thing?

Thank you~

4) What is your favourite genre to write for?Most of my fandoms are in the fantasy genre? Or if we’re talking about fic ‘genres’ I guess... uh, angst? drama?

21) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?Ooohh. Let’s see. 

@neuxue -- Lia knows what she’s done. :D No but really, such beautiful use of language and an amazing grasp of characters that are frighteningly intelligent and tragic and doomed.

@veliseraptor -- how do you write like you’re running out of time??? (alright I mean being a chronic overachiever may not be all sunshine and rainbows but still) also I mean I’m not super into Lise’s most active fandoms but her dialogue is always a delight and her prose is very... alive and easy to read.

there are others but I’ll be here all night if I tried to list all of them so I’ll just leave it at that, this time

27) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?Mostly go with the flow. If and when I get to rewriting To Walk in the Light, though, I’m gonna have to outline that shit at least to some extent.

[redbelles]

catch up tag

tagged by: @majicmarker 💖

last song: san andreas fault (live) by natalie merchant

last film: 65 (2023)

currently reading: the grace year by kim liggett, achilles in vietnam: combat trauma and the undoing of character by jonathan shay, the jasad heir by sara hashem, and one dark window by rachel gillig

currently watching: berserk (1997)

current obsession: ho ho holy fucking shit i am so deep into berserk it's a actually a little upsetting! guts! casca! the themes! the emotions! the soundtrack! the fact that the manga started in 1989 and is still running even though kentaro miura is dead! anyway,,,,, can't wait to write some goddamn fix it fic

tagging: @carry-the-sky @ninzied @woodswit @ladywaffles @sluttyhenley @neuxue @jacyevans @thatworldinverted @tomcriuse @gresit @hotgirlcoded and anyone else who wants a go ✨

[redbelles]

last line tag game

write the latest line from your WIP (or post where you last left off in your art) and tag as many people as you want. make a new post, don’t reblog.  

tagged by: @carry-the-sky​ 💖

yes i’m writing top gun fic, no i don’t wanna talk about it. me @ me shut up about the goddamn plane go fast propaganda movies.

The base is quiet. Ceiling fans spin uselessly in every room, pushing the hot air around in lazy swirls, turning the whole place into an oven.

Maverick falls into step with him as he rounds the last corner, keeping pace with him on the ground the same way he does in the sky. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world, being on Ice’s wing. Something about the thought scrapes him raw. He shoves it away as Viper waves them in.

tagging: @sluttyhenley @littlelindentree @ninzied @urulokid @honeybabydichotomy @neuxue and anyone else who wants a go ✨

[neuxue]

first line meme

Tagged by: @curiosity-killed thank you!

Rules: List the first lines of the last ten (10) stories you  published. Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if  anyone else notices any. Then tag some friends.

Okay we’re going back literal years to get to 10 stories posted, because I have posted exactly one (1) fic since 2019, but.

1. It is not until cool fingers brush across his cheeks and gently lift his chin that he truly realises he has a body.  —  (show you all your) demons and desires and dark sides

2. She came to him in Tel’aran’rhiod, and Asmodean knew better than to ask if it was because she feared to face him in the waking world.  —  To the City, Lost and Forsaken

3. A world breathed in, and Holland dreamed.  —  Our Torments Become Our Elements

4. Arya sees it in the moment of the Night King's death, with winter shattering around her in glittering shards, in wind unleashed, and it floods her with realisation stronger than any relief.  —  Requiem in Fire (Prelude in Ice)

5. agony and darkness and the beckoning edges of oblivion shatter into wakefulness a world the same but broken a mountain rising once more into pain tearing at self at memory a void gaping into the endlessness of time he has no eyes he cannot look away awoken again to a world changed he whispers and trollocs flood south he whispers and none hear as he is silenced again by the veil of darkness he cannot embrace pain he wakes and whispers again and the others sleep oblivious as silence and endless sleep stretch before him but elude him and—  —  Awakenings

6. Once upon a time, two demons burned an empire to ash, that a world could be remade.  —  Eschatarch

7. The child stared into the heart of the flames that warmed him even as they drew from him, and in his burning he barely felt the hands that grasped his shoulders and lifted him away, away, away, as the fire faded into his eyes.  —  Eponymous

8. "You will do well, Rand."  —  Chapter 52: (Different) Choices

9. Always the dreams ended the same way, night after night.  —  Dreaming a Disaster

10. “Sunhair” they call her, the young Aes Sedai who turns her studies skyward.  —  Orbital Dynamics

As for patterns... I like repetition and prose that borders on the overwrought? I expected to say I don’t tend to name the character(s) in the first sentence but turns out that’s not actually backed up by statistics, so. I guess I also seem to like starting... less in media res in terms of action but definitely in the middle of some mental/emotional Situations or confusion.

tagging... I feel like a lot of you have done this one already but @redbelles @qi-ling @paradife-loft @mamsellefreeman and anyone else who wants to and has not been tagged yet!

[neuxue]

Assuming your post about having fic ideas is about The Untamed, would you mind sharing some of those ideas? I love your meta so I'm curious what you would do for fic.

(Okay side note: I’d never really have thought to call my liveblogging ‘meta’, probably because that makes it sound like I have any idea what I’m doing... but either way I’m glad you’re enjoying it!)

Anyway. Yes, this post was indeed (mostly) about The Untamed, and... sure, why not. It’s unlikely I’ll end up writing them anytime soon anyway (certainly not until I’ve finished the show, which at my current pace could be A While, and then there’s the sporadic nature of my fic-writing in general).

Keeping in mind that I’ve only watched through ep.24 so these may or may not make sense (but no spoilers please!):

Burial Mounds: The Absolute Worst Training Montage. Mostly I want more content for those three months than the show has provided so far, because I Love Suffering. He comes out of this with just so many little indicators of extreme trauma and I need it. 

(or 1.5) I have Thoughts about how and why Wei Wuxian learns to control this power via music, so if I can expand that beyond the scene that spontaneously wrote itself in my head, and the show doesn’t give me something better, this may eventually happen.

I’m not usually into role reversal AUs, but for some reason the notion of ‘Lan Wangji is the one cast into the Burial Mounds’ won’t leave me alone. I don’t have much beyond that, so if anyone feels like taking this one and running with it, be my guest.

AU in which Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng succeed in tracking down Wei Wuxian before he leaves the Burial Mounds. Mostly because there are just so very many ways this could turn awful. (Also I have this image of one or both of them fighting their way through this place of darkness, probably already half-dead, following a melody they’re not sure is real or hallucinated and looking up to see in the midst of swirling darkness Wei Wuxian with a flute to his lips, staring at them in amazement or horror or something darker, or even a complete lack of recognition...)

You know how we cut from Wei Wuxian being beaten in the Yiling teashop to Wen Chao & co flying him over the Burial Mounds? I’m not saying there’s potential for some excellent dead-dove-do-not-eat style missing scene content there... but I’m not not saying that. This, too, is up for adoption should anyone feel so inclined.

I realised as I was writing this that these all relate to the Burial Mounds in some way, which... is not surprising, given that my standard reaction to ‘character gets thrown into a lightless place, endures unimaginable suffering, and claws their way out via terrible power’ is pretty much invariably ‘more please’. (The fact that I can think of several examples of this offhand maybe says something about my fictional tastes)

[neuxue]

Apparently it’s ASoIaF week on my blog so here have a half-outlined Rhaegar Lives (A Little Longer) AU that no one asked for and that I will probably never write:

It’s me so letting characters live is just about making things worse

Rhaegar is imprisoned at the Tower of Joy (‘This is your joy, Rhaegar. May you choke on it’)

Arthur Dayne lives and is now of course sworn to Robert because Kingsguard, and Robert sets him to guard Rhaegar

(it’s a punishment to both of them, of course)

So begins an exile of endless days, silent without music and empty of Lyanna’s promise but full of the despair of prophecy unfulfilled

(he has failed and in failing has damned himself, for how can he justify this blood on hands that need never have held a sword after all, this chaos he has made of a world to which he once wanted only to bring beauty?)

(he has failed and he is damned and so what purpose is there, anymore, in continuing to exist?)

Maybe he finally convinces Dayne to spar with him or maybe he tests him by attempting to ‘escape’ but one way or another he steps towards Dawn’s blade rather than away from it

Arthur Dayne looks at him with sorrow in his eyes and says ‘I swore a vow’

and so Rhaegar cannot die

all he can do is watch

But even in the tower he hears things: hears of rumours from the Wall, hears of the Night’s Watch weakening

asks, futilely, if he might be allowed to take the black (it is not the true black of the oblivion he seeks, but ice is at least a fitting punishment for one whose fire wrought such ruin)

(of course they say no)

Rumours, too, of dragons across the sea. They are bittersweet, now, for all he can think is that it was not him, was never him, none of this need have happened

And so the years pass as the prince in the tower watches, listens, and tries futilely to die

But Daenerys, too, hears whispers. Of a prince imprisoned in a tower, the last dragon chained

So when it is time for her to cross the sea, Daenerys’s aim is not purely conquest or claim but justice

She arrives at Dragonstone and the first place she flies is Dorne

Rhaegar sees her, sees her riding a dragon, and weeps to see that prophecy might yet find a way, that all might not yet be lost

He greets her with tears and a smile and a song, this sister of his who will do what he could not, and asks of her one thing only

So Daenerys embraces this brother she has only just met

and steps back to put a hand on Drogon’s side

and watches Rhaegar smile as she whispers ‘dracarys’

(she remembers thinking, when one brother died by fire, that fire cannot kill a dragon, but now she knows that’s not quite true)

(dragons are beings of fire, and only by fire can a dragon die in peace)

[neuxue]

Happy holidays @liancrescent - I’m your WoT Secret Santa! You asked for Forsaken, so have some missing scenes from the Worst Roadtrip Ever

Title: To the City, Lost and Forsaken Characters: Asmodean, Lanfear, Rand al’Thor (briefly) Summary:  Lanfear and Asmodean's Great and Terrible Roadtrip: it's all fun and games until someone gets betrayed. Wordcount: 2821 Warnings: none

[neuxue]

i'm curious, what fics for wot would you like to write?

Friend. (Roman. Countryman). That is A Question.

Um.

All of it? 

But okay, a rather vague and entirely incomplete list:

More Age of Legends, possibly (hard emphasis on possibly) continuing/expanding on the Orbital Dynamics/Paradise Entropic uh… ‘verse, outside of Ilyena’s story, especially with more of the eventual Forsaken

And I have a really horrible thing I want to do with the Hundred Companions but it would be An Undertaking, so we’ll see

AU in which Lews Therin ends up partially trapped in the same way Ishamael is, because he is closest to the weaving of the prison

False Dragons. All the false Dragons. Taim and Logain had to meet at some point, right? Why were we deprived of it?

And what drives someone to declare himself the Dragon Reborn (herself? Any of those in history? Damn it I have played myself because I hadn’t even had that as a fic I wanted to write but as soon as I typed it I decided I need it)

Guaire Amalasan is a problem and I want more

There’s a Rhuidean-esque fic I’ve had sort of outlined for a while with Lan seeing the history of the Malkieri and the origins of the sword he carries, which I will finish eventually

Lan and Isam, two childhoods destroyed by the Blight, but differently

Moiraine/Lanfear. Don’t look at me like that.

And (including?) continuing the Moiraine-is-Cyndane….thing, because I have…ideas.

Various characters actually serve the Shadow, because I am entirely predictable and what else would you expect of me

Probably some sort of…twists in the Pattern series of ficlets in which very very small things go very slightly differently and everything changes because, again, I’m predictable

Observations from the Dream, as Birgitte watches ages come and pass and memory become legend fade to myth as it plays out in front of her eyes, in between her lives

You know that ‘plan’ Joiya reveals about setting up Taim as a fake Rand in order to sow confusion and chaos? That, but instead of Taim it’s Moridin, who is given a body that looks very like Rand’s rather than the one we see him in

And a few specific ones I want to write but probably won’t until I finish the series, because they would need to be set post-series and I want to see how certain things play out. One involves Asmodean surviving (though he certainly won’t be happy about it because I’m not that kind of fic writer (I’m the sort who looks at ‘Everyone Lives’ and says ‘alright, challenge accepted’))

[neuxue]

I hardly even go here, I haven’t actually seen this episode or any of this season except in gif form, and I woke up this morning giving exactly no fucks who kills the Night’s King...but then people at work were talking shit about Arya Stark and listen, my origins in fandom are ‘no, wait, I can make this work’ and apparently that’s the hill I die on.