#originally it was only a wip i was supposed to post but i went insane on the effect

[prittiswaggy-co]

Nightmares

[gwendeeagain]

How I wrote the Demon fic

Don't draw devil's traps in janitors' closets is one of my longest fic series I’ve ever written, the most notable of which would be my Demon Gakushuu fic, if you’ve seen it. 

In partial response to an ask post (link here), I’ve decided to revisit my writing of this fic series! It was quite a long journey for me and I think it might be fun (?) sharing it with everyone. It’s rather long, so I’ll tag it under “keep reading”. 

FYI this thread contains major spoilers for the fic (and would honestly make no sense if you do not have prior knowledge of it).

I'll just refer to the first fic in the series as Books because it has an insanely long title. Subsequent fics are in order Burgundy, Potential, Illuminate, Illuminate rewrite, and Addendum. The main series is linked here.

Addendum is not linked in the main series for reasons I'll explain below. (link here)

Books

I think one of my biggest mistakes writing Books is my lack of plot planning, and subsequently how thematically inconsistent it became. I start off most my fics with a rough idea of how I want the story to end, and a few good themes to carry me through the plot as I write, but for Books I started off with the first chapter and nothing else. If you followed the notes of my fic you'd probably have witnessed my gradual descent into uncertainty and despair as the fic spiralled out of my control due to how wrong I felt it was becoming.

The fic took a surprisingly hard toll on me. I absolutely hated it. I refused to mark it as complete because I was dissatisfied with how it ended. I thought that everyone was out of character, that I lost the original ending and goal in my head, that it was thematically messy such that I couldn't justify any ending I tried to come up with, and I was just grasping at straws trying to make it work. 

The three things that bothered me were Gakushuu’s wings, Koro-Sensei and the introduction of Aina. When I started this fic I had plans to kill off Koro-Sensei at the end, however as the fic went on it became a celebration of life and learning how to live, and I knew I couldn’t bring myself to have any death in this fic... but at the same time I had Gakushuu find a lot of meaning in Koro-Sensei’s (to-be) death and I didn’t want to undo that. The wings were on a similar note, because Gakushuu spend 50k words finding out who he is and accepting that he was different. Turning that message around and making him go back to being “the same” ate me up inside, but at the same time I set-up the Demon Society in such a way that they would kill Gakushuu if he didn’t have his wings, and it’s supposed to be a happy ending, dammit! Aina was a particularly egregious case because I threw her (and Ikeda) in without any prior warning at the very last minute. I already had a whole world and setting planned for them which I never got to expand on in the previous chapters because I was so anxious about the other two points, and when it came down to the last chapter I realized I had no set-up for these two, who were supposed to be major players in the finale. Basically I was bad at writing.

Even now I cannot fully articulate why it was terrible for me, but compounded with my real-life stressors, I suppose it just became a bit too much to deal with. (This is a piece of fiction that I am creating from scratch. If I can't even get this under control, what hope do I have for everything else?)

((For come disclosure I was never formally diagnosed with any mental illness, but my parents are the sort of people who don’t believe mental illness exists anyways. I would say that I’ve had depressive episodes when I was younger and sometimes even now, but I’ve learnt my ways of dealing with them!))

Burgundy

Four days later I published Burgundy, a short sequel to Books, very shortly after only because I had already finished writing by that time. I actually do still have several half-finished follow ups at that point, but I couldn't bring myself to complete any sequels because I couldn't even come to terms with the ending of the main story. (Those wips are lost to me now.) I think I was hoping that forcing myself to publish the sequel would show me that it was "no big deal" that the main fic didn't end the way I hoped it would, but it succeeded in making me feel worse.

Potential

About one month after that I wrote Potential. It was a three parter, somehow a fifth of the length of the main fic, that followed Gakuhou's perspective prior to the events of Books. It was a prequel which imo made it easier to write, because I still couldn't move on from Books yet. I think writing Potential was me trying to remind myself why I wrote Books in the first place, to perhaps reignite my original passion for the series. It's kind of funny to think about in hindsight, and a little meta, because Potential was a lead up to the events in Books. It worked... a little bit, I think. I still couldn't reconcile my feelings for the whole thing, but through it I got to revisit the original premise that I fell in love with and expand more on worldbuilding it. I could reprise Aina and Ikeda and finally write about the world I planned to introduce them in in the first fic and give more context and insights to how the demon society was supposed to work.

Illuminate

Six months after Potential, I ran into a comment that said, "what would Gakuhou have done if Gakushuu had died?" And for some reason it struck an epiphany in me. After that I wrote Illuminate in one night, cried myself to sleep, waited one more night to proofread it, and then published it. Illuminate was an AU to the first three fics in the series, and it was a fic about grief and mourning. Spoiler alert: I straight up killed Gakushuu in that fic. And somehow that was what I needed.

I quite literally killed my first fic - I upended the terrible ending I hated from Books - everything I had been uncertain about at first? I killed it. Plot points didn't fit my original plans? Killed it. (When I reread the death scene, I... honestly think I was unnecessarily cruel. I must have really been out of my mind when I wrote it, hah!)

And then I wrote myself a love story about missing it, grieving it, and finally letting go of it. It was heart wrenching for me - I made Gakuhou cry about what he lost, what could have been, what he realized he loved, and at the end of it all he could say "I love you and I can move on from you." And I did!

Illuminate (Rewrite)

Illuminate Rewrite, one year later, was me revisiting Illuminate to reflect on myself where I've come with this series. I actually just swapped the places of two paragraphs to change the mood at the end for something more contemplative. I elaborated a bit more on this in my notes for Rewrite, so I won't repeat them here.

Honestly, I still have a hard time coming back to reread Illuminate even after the whole debacle has happened. I attached a lot of emotions through my journey with this, and revisiting it each time takes quite a bit out of me.

Addendum

Addendum was just me having fun! After Illuminate, I managed to reconcile my feelings with the fic series. I was finally able to mark Books as complete and move on from it, and afterwards I wrote a fun little au sequel to Illuminate so that Gakushuu can live again. I could creatively expand on ideas and just do... whatever! It's more of a loose connection of plot points than a real fic, honestly.

Addendum follows Gakushuu in a future hundreds of years later, after every human who he's once known in Books has died. And... he moves on! Gets a job, makes friends, lives his life, and most importantly move on.

I chose to publish in a separate collection, however, because it was an incomplete story and I didn’t want to have a half-complete fic tacked on to what I have settled in my heart as a complete fic collection.

And that’s about it! <3

[faejilly]

I was tagged by @la-muerta​ & @facialteeth​ & @thedivinemissema​ for the WIP/Title Game

rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and interests you and i’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!

AND THEN  by @shadoedseptmbr​ @msviolacea​ & @ravenclawnerd​ for the “stories you want to write... but for some reason haven’t yet”

so this will be a mish-mash of both? The WIPs will mostly have blurbs in this case (to fit the second meme) but you are still welcome to ask follow-up questions, if you’d like ;) Assuming you make it through the list, it is uh. Not Short.

Anyone who would like to play with their WIPs, please consider yourself tagged in either or both of these. :D

Misc Fic Folder:

“untitled document” - where I’m working on fictober fills so I have word-counts for my GYWO tracker. I am not working on these because Brains Are Dumb and also Going Back To Work Is Exhausting

I made a file called “YULETIDE!” which has nothing in it but I’m determined to finish this year so that is definitely technically a thing in the Unending WIP List of Doom worth mentioning. (Tho obviously that’s all I could say even if I had started, because anonymous.)

“coda-fics, rewatch!” -yes, that exclamation mark is important! it’s to keep me motivated! (it didn’t work). Much like untitled, this is for putting stuff so I can do word count tracking even if I don’t know what I’m doing. Currently I think it just says “MARYSE” because I was working on my SH 1x6 coda-fic and then got distracted and haven’t typed anything up yet. (Yay notebooks? Boo notebooks? Not even sure at this point.)

WNIP (works not in progress) Folder:

“TOG” - I had one vivid mental image of how Nicky & Joe met (blood-stained evil smiles?) but then no idea for a follow-up story and also the fandom is insane and I’m not sure I want to deal with all of *gestures vaguely* all that

“Shan Xia Notes” -for a TTRPG that never quite got off the ground; she was a semi-tragic selkie who was still in love with the evil queen/lady who stole her skin and I got to play her for like one session and she was surprisingly chaotic neutral, which wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting. But the game never really got off the ground, so I never had enough info to really delve into writing backstory fic

“post-Kruschev” -Kruschev’s List was the last episode of Scarecrow & Mrs King, and I was debating writing an epilogue in place of the s5 we never got, to try and tie up some loose ends, but the fandom’s three old-ladies in trench coats and I never quite worked up the gumption to get it anywhere

“Code Realize warm as silk sequel” -there is literally nothing in this file except “SEX! Only a little angst” because I wanted to write some “we can’t actually touch each other” smut but never actually did. 🤷‍♀️

BioWare (also all Not-In-Progress Anymore)

“seb/adelaide”, “Theia” & “DAI Erana” -these WIP folders were cannibalized for ficlets for the last few times I did fictober, and while originally I had ideas for longer epilogues for all three of them, at this point I don’t think any of the remaining bits could support a story any longer.

”whispers in the dark” -Maia Ryder never really got much fic at all; the cancellation of any further Andromeda stuff was really disheartening, and at this point I’d have to play the game again, and I don’t think I’m gonna manage that any time soon

”TSP” -a Mass Effect 3 Shepard AU collab project that kind of went off the rails, and our mutual brains/lives never quite seem to line up so we can try and rebuild it ”Ngaio & Tane” -my one truly ruthless Shepard (Alliance background, who romanced Traynor) whose father Tane Shepard was, I think, in PsyOps, and I wanted to figure out their complicated relationship but never really did know where I was going with it

”JE Zu & Yaling” -so I’ve rambled about my Tragic Sagacious Zu Romance Thoughts regarding Jade Empire more than once (#Icy Yaling should have most of it) but apparently I want to yell about it more than I want to actually write it? Whoops.

”CI sequel: 5 times fic?” -Cruel Intentions is a kinkmeme fill that I started and then it sat for like five years before I actually finished it, and I liked the ending, but it does leave a giant fucking question mark in terms of how those people got from there to where they are after the game, and I kind of wanted to write a proper h/c fic rather than just... leaving them wallowing in all that trauma?

But I didn’t. I don’t even remember for sure how I wanted to frame the 5/1 of it all, besides it being something sad about allowing people to see you or touch you in some way. (Prayers maybe, since I think there was definitely some Sebastian & Fenris & faith stuff going on in there.)

“candles” -Merribela prompt fill that I never was happy with? Not sure what I might do with it at this point, so it’s just sitting there all sad and lonely and neglected-like.

Shadowhunters

pt1: WIP LIST ONLY

“Persuasion” -so I keep trying to write Persuasion AUs in many fandoms because it’s my favorite Austen, but I think I like it too much, I have no real solid concept of how I’d transform it, and if I don’t have anything else to say about different characters within that framework, I have no push to actually write anything? Also this SH version of it suffered from MASSIVE scope creep when I started outlining and it got too big for me to handle so I like, killed it twice? Whoops. This one is really probably never gonna happen.

“oosdt sequel” -I wanted to write more about the Forest That Eats People and Magnus & Alec as Guardians Between Worlds, and also some background Magnus’ Found Family & Lightwood Family Feels (maybe some clizzy?) and I left a Madzie plot-thread dangling from the first one on purpose even but I think this one had too many ideas and not enough focus so it’s sort of sprawling all over a doc with a lot of “???” in it

“procedural-ish” -this was originally going to be a sex-farce. and then it turned more serious. and then maybe kind of copaganda which was uncomfortable in terms of the Everything That Is The News in 2020, and then maybe it was more a Mafia AU and at that point I had self-inflicted tone whiplash and I wished the voices in my head were a little more forthcoming about their plans so I stopped before I brained myself on my computer monitor in frustration.

“I had rather a rose than live forever” -I started a reverse!verse Malec (Shadowhunter!Magnus, High Warlock!Alec) for bingo last year, and I couldn’t quite get it together in time, so I made a moodboard inspired by the bits I’d started instead. I may see if one of my prompts from Bingo this year help me finish it?

“fall fright fest (practical magic  au)” -exactly what it says on the tin! almost exactly a year old & neglected! IDEK ANYMORE (I talked about this one with the WIP meme last time tho: here)

“priest!kink theology?” -I thought it was gonna be smut? I like priest!kink. I have made other people like it and yell at me even! But then I kept diverging into demon!Magnus thinking about Priest!Alec’s faith and as usual, IDEK ANYMORE *laughs*

(If they’re remotely canon-adjacent or divergent, a bunch of these are in here because I need to rewatch the show to get the pacing/timing/tone right and I haven’t, and I don’t know why, because I enjoy the show, but BRAINS! Are Dumb! So I guess that’s it?)

“I do” -I have tried to write this damnable Malec arranged marriage fic like six different times. I have signed up for fic exchanges and bangs with it, I have rewritten massive sections, trying to change tone or structure or POV or whatever, and it basically comes down to they like each other too fast and I keep not gutting it enough to get back to a useful pace, but by the time I realized that I was on take six and kind of sick of it. I may get back to it eventually

“wing!fic” -canon divergent in early s1, trying to deal with the consequences of Simon’s kidnapping as the Truly Serious Event that it should have been. It uh. Got heavier than I expected with those consequences (considering it was originally just supposed to be Alec’s wings flirting with Magnus) and also see above re: rewatching for pacing.

“2x20 aftermath/date night/pandemonium porn“ -yes that is the actual wip title. It used to be “spite fic” because I was originally inspired by fighting against a lot of fic!Alec characterization that was clearly based more on the books and ATG syndrome than the Alec in the show, which is the Alec I know and like and want to read about. BUT, pacing and etc. again, I think. Also I have somehow entirely lost my knack for writing porn, which makes it difficult to finish something originally intended to be smut!fic. Or even teasing almost!smut.

“rubbish heap” -so this is about three different fics that I realized complemented each other really well so they’re now all in the same file as I try to turn them into the sequel of “with an if in its soul”. It includes amnesia, parabatai lore shenanigans, a s3 rewrite, and some truly awful Owl adjustments that make me wince in horrified authorly delight and pain. BUT, as with the other ones in this file, the scope is large and I normally write short-fic and I kind of just threw up my hands in exasperation. I may have to break it back up into the three different fics instead, if I ever actually want to write it. Them? But also I need to take better notes on s3 to make sure I have what I need in here.

SH Pt 2: Started posting or not yet in hiatus because it’s actually almost ready to be a thing in the real world! maybe!?

“kisses (firsts)” -I actually started publishing this one, a “series of firsts” that was supposed to be kind of relationship milestones and kind of an excuse for smut, and then there wasn’t that much smut and I lost momentum and also dear lords & ladies the timeline is stupid, wtf. I may not ever add to this one, tbqh. It doesn’t stop in a terrible place, and they’re all ficlets so they stand alone all right.

“clizzy epilogue” -this is blank atm, it’s more a reminder for me to keep poking away at my “girls who can’t breathe air, only fire” collection BECAUSE I WOULD LIKE TO ACTUALLY GET TO THE CLIZZY AT SOME POINT

"mer!alec" -pts 2-4 of a series, but apparently having an actual plan gets in the way of me *writing* the thing, and I haven't managed to throw the half an outline far enough away from my brain to be able to write again. Or something like that.

"ibhww" -if broken hearts were whole is a soulmate fic I started a million years ago, and purposefully set aside to finish some other WIPs because I thought they'd be quick, and now it's just buried under two and a half years of regret and shame so it's hard to get back to it

"iafy" -i am for you is a delightful & frothy semi-epistolary fluff piece that also just lost momentum because Life & 2020 & etc. It's far and away the most popular thing I've ever posted on AO3, which also makes me feel weird sometimes, and I feel like the fact that there's no grand conclusion planned, just a bit more fluff and settling in, might end up being disappointing? Basically, it's the first time I think I've psyched myself out about reader expectations, and until I get over that I'm going to have trouble finishing the last couple chapters. (There really are probably only two more chapters though. IT’S SO CLOSE, I wish I could just... write it. And yet?)

“fake-hating” -I do not like fake dating as a trope that much, I just do not get it, but I love outside POVs and arranged marriages and there’s this delighful tumblr post about how they wished there was more fic about people who were together but had to pretend they werent’, and uh. This may be that? Eventually? I’m not exhausted by my failure to finish it yet, so it’s still in the regular folder rather than the hiatus folder, even though nothing’s been posted for it.

AND I THINK THAT’S IT?

Not as terrible as it could be, but still. MANY WORDS THAT MAY NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY. Posting the equivalent of one’s old ratty sketchbook is always a weird feeling. :D

[apprenticenerd]

"Anyone can send me an ask with one of the titles and I’ll post a snippet or talk about that WIP!" The Acropolis, Tacet, Checklist, A Tiny Galaxy, Hearsay, Going Back, Ella Disenchanted, Making Peace, The Slashed Circle, Wake Up, Tenno, Midnight, Heliotropism, Arrhythmia, the one about Among Us, the one about Library of Ruina, the one that’s a D&D world concept. Yes, all of them. I know you wanna talk about all of them. So go, go forth and do it!

Hoooo boy, this is gonna be a long post. Lots and lots of writing snippets under the cut to avoid dash stretch!

The Acropolis - original - length uncertain - 1.4k and counting

im not ready for this im not i thought it would be yrs i thought id at least get an english degree first

omg sal whats goin on

fuckin hell whyd it have to be now i have a chem lab tomorrow

sally-tate macpherson. u never swear. ever. wtf is goin on.

ok. jess. i need u to listen really really carefully. understand?

answer the goddamn question ur scarin me

shut up and listen and this will go a lot better

fine but u need to tell me wtf is happnenig

ok. im going to tell you a bunch of stuff. not giving u advice, thats not allowed, but im gonna tell u stuff it seems like itd be impossible for me to know.

?????????????

i said shut up this is really important dont question how i know it. just go with it and figure out what to do. and dont die. bc no matter how crazy stuff seems, if u die, ur dead. here and everywhere. ok?

This is an original story coming straight from a @/writing-prompt-s prompt about a crack in a kid’s hardwood floor that they fantasized was a portal actually being one. I originally intended to write the entire thing like this, as a conversation over text, but that may not be feasible given a certain world-building detail at the other end of the portal (and the limits of my creativity lmao).

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Tacet - The Blackout Club - one-shot - 3.2k and counting

She closed her eyes again, and there it was. Hallucination? Some new science trick with electromagnetic radiation off the visible spectrum? Evidence that she was actually going insane? Whatever it was, it burned behind her eyelids in bright, incontrovertible red - and was completely invisible when she opened her eyes again. There was just the usual mess of club posters and one big one about someone’s exceedingly dumb-looking lost cat.

Eyes open, there was only Sargent Snuggles. Eyes closed, there was the normal darkness and then three lines of text where the poster had been, wavering like scarlet fire:

JOIN TBC JOIN TBC JOIN TBC

TBC? What the fuck was that? She’d never heard of any group with that acronym before. Hardly aware of the flurry of weird looks from half the other people in the hallway, she crossed the hall to examine the lost cat poster more closely. It felt like perfectly normal paper when she touched it, and there wasn’t even a hint of red with her eyes open, unless you counted the cat’s tacky pink sweater. How the hell was this even possible?

“You’re finally cracking, Bri,” she groaned under her breath, then headed for her locker. She did have to get home. Add another big fat entry to the weird shit list.

A backstory one-shot for my Blackout Club OC Briar, telling the story of how she got into the club in the first place. I’ve been stuck in the same spot for a while now, after Briar’s friend Dani explains the club to her, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the scene’s over as is. Of course, writing the next one is the tough part.

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Checklist - The Blackout Club - one-shot - 1.7k and counting

8. You still have a headache. Shouldn’t you go back to sleep and try to do this in the morning?

9. (wake up)

10. Nah, you’ve always been a night owl, and school starts criminally early, too early to get much done beforehand. It’s quiet, except for Dad snoring. Your parents are asleep already. You can stay up until this is done, and they’ll be none the wiser.

11. Your head hurts worse. It’s getting harder to think. At only 9 pm? 9:30? Whatever. You should sleep.

12. (wake UP)

13. What are you thinking? You have to read at least a little of this chapter, or there’s no way you’ll be able to bullshit your way through class tomorrow. Besides, all of a sudden, the silence feels...strange. Heavier? You can’t describe it.

14. You need to sleep. You need a drink of water or something. You need to finish this damn homework. You need to sleep. You need to sleep.

15. Stare at The Great Gatsby. It doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense.

16. Realize what’s up with the silence. Dad’s not snoring anymore. You aren’t feeling like yourself. You need to sleep.

17. Something’s weird.

18. (WAKE UP) 

19. ...No. Something’s wrong.

Another Blackout Club story and another Interface Screw, as it were, this time in the form of a (very long) checklist. None of the characters have names (yet). It describes another way a kid could find themself running around at night with the Blackout Club, this time by fighting off the Song just enough to run into a club member who could wake them up the rest of the way. As with Tacet, I still need to write the suspenseful part.

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A Tiny Galaxy - Warframe - 4 chapters planned, 1 complete, 1 in progress - 7.8k and counting

Try it if you don’t believe me, the kid in the vent had said.

It was impossible. It was physically impossible. All of this was impossible. Had the Void...? Could the Void...?

The ship was at a standstill. Her mother had tried to kill her, and something had happened. She’d made something happen. There had been no holoprojector in that kid’s hand. Nothing was impossible anymore.

Jhia took a deep breath. How the heck was she supposed to do this? Was she supposed to feel something, some internal guide? Blue Hair hadn’t said. Feeling incredibly stupid, she did a quick mental checkup on herself. Nothing felt wrong, or different - but now that she thought about it…

Afterward, she would try many times to explain it, and fail every time. The best she could come up with was that once she found the Void, calling on it was as easy and as natural as breathing. She opened her hands in front of her, concentrated on that force like an extension of herself, reopened her eyes, and there it was: a riotous little ball of energy, wisps and motes of light and not-quite-light like a tiny galaxy, the Tau system in the palm of her hand, raging.

More OC backstory time! This one’s for my Tenno, a nerdy fourteen-year-old (at the time of this story, anyway) by the name of Jhia, going through the hell that is the Zariman Ten-Zero and what happened on it. This is possibly the first part of the story I actually wrote: the roll-credits moment when Jhia realizes the Void’s changed her more already than she thought.

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Hearsay - Lobotomy Corporation/Library of Ruina - one-shot - 1k and counting

"Oh? Did they investigate further?"

"They tried. Found a few fingerprints, but they didn't match anyone in the database."

"What's the update, then?"

"Reports from elsewhere in the district of someone not in uniform carrying a Zwei sword. They're slippery, good at avoiding us, which would suggest Syndicate operative to me and HQ. Except that in every one of the descriptions we managed to get, our sword thief is a child."

"What? How?!"

"You tell me, Iona. You're the one who went to the crime scene."

"Right... Jeez, if it's a kid, I guess that'd explain why Petrov thought they weren't a threat..."

"My thoughts exactly. HQ has a fair amount of hearsay to go on, but nobody can quite agree on how old the child is, or whether or not she's with a Syndicate. Most agree that she appears to be a girl, tall for a child, auburn hair, clothes and demeanor typical of a Backstreets native."

"We got a name?"

"They've heard Yeri, Kali, Redbird, Suma, Aelfin... No one knows which is her real one, or if it's even any of them at all."

"Damn. ...Say, are you going to drink that entire pot of coffee?"

"Help yourself."

This is one of those stories that turned into an accidental AU when more of canon came out. The idea behind it is that it’s Kali’s backstory told entirely in conversations in which she did not participate, showcasing the fact that a Fixer’s fame is their livelihood and Kali was about as famous as they come, before the whole L Corp thing happened. Of course, the vast majority of the headcanons here got invalidated with a certain Ruina update, so my motivation’s kinda down on this one.

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Going Back has already been talked about here!

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Ella Disenchanted - The Blackout Club - one-shot (maybe two-shot??) - 1.4k and counting

She woke. Her stomach went through a series of panicked flip-flops as she thought something strange had done it, Dad or a little-kid-nightmares shadow beast had made noise, but no - why had she fallen asleep in the first place? Her butt and shoulder were sore where they’d been leaning on the bottom and side of the windowsill, presumably all night, since the sun was full up over the trees on Old Growth Hill. 

All night. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t fall asleep, but she did anyway. God dammit.

As she unfolded herself from her cramped ball, though, she froze. Under the comforter she’d pulled around her shoulders for warmth, she was wearing her gray jacket, a T-shirt, jeans, sneakers getting dried mud all over the carpet. 

Last she remembered, she’d been in her pajamas.

In which a Blackout Club kid’s little sister wonders where he’s gone when he runs away to the boxcar, and tries to get to the bottom of the mystery herself. Usually she’d be too young for the club to recruit, but her investigations and an incident involving SAO are more than enough extenuating circumstance. Unlike most of my other WIPs, there’s a whole outline at the end of my doc for this one.

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Making Peace - Warframe - multi-chapter - 1.5k and counting

“I…” Iksoh finally said. “Sorna, I hope you realize. I’m not into this. I never - I’m not doing this. Whatever you’re doing, I can’t.”

“I know,” Sorna said softly. The decision tore at her heart again and she almost backed out of the vent, but no. She had to go. She wouldn’t see another innocent crumple in her rifle sights. “I hope you realize. I’m not coming back.”

Behind her, Iksoh let out a long, shaky breath. “It’s taking all I’ve got not to report you right now. Sorna… the Queens’ll have my head for this. Please, please, let it be worth it. Go. Don’t let them take yours.”

“I won’t,” Sorna promised, and meant it.

Later, after her last fight for her freedom was done, on the Steel Meridian ship headed for Kronia Relay, Sorna looked out at the planet retreating behind her and thought of Iksoh. She’d just learned a new word from a Meridian soldier: vaykor tal, the defector’s spirit. Iksoh had let her go, at risk of their own life. They’d had a bit of the vaykor tal themself, even if they hadn’t known it, even if they’d thought it was just some weakness that was bound to get them killed.

“Ranre treri, duf krun,” she whispered into space, a Grineer well-wishing passed down from sergeant to tube-fresh lancer since time immemorial. May your hands be steady, and may life be kind.

This is an AU born of me and some friends wondering why in the heck Perrin and the Meridian hate each other so much in game. It’s about a group of Kavor - Grineer defectors distinguished from other Meridian members by their pacifism - who get to a Relay and start wondering the same thing. Besides Sorna (and, later in the story, Iksoh as well), there would have been Chakh, Beket, and Sydon, plus at least four of the syndicate leaders and a bunch of side-character OCs, all caught up somehow in what turns out to be a surprisingly far-reaching web of intrigue.

--

The Slashed Circle - Warframe - one-shot, probably - 429 and counting

In addition to their written and spoken language, the Grineer have a full language of hand signs. It has its quirks, as all languages do - be careful of confusing it with the Corpus sign language, in which the sign for “to pay” roughly approximates the Grineer sign for...a certain portion of the male anatomy. Among these is the common Grineer sentiment against those who defect from their ranks, baked into the sign just as much as their spoken words. 

The sign of the slashed circle, the sedashkur - a finger drawn in a circle on the chest, followed by a diagonal line - is the highest of taboos to any loyal Grineer. It shows support for such scum as the Kavor and Steel Meridian, enough so that it forms the basis for the Meridian’s battle standard. To sign the sedashkur is to betray your siblings, commit a grave insult to your superiors, paint a near-indelible target on your back. It is an object of hatred and fear throughout the ranks.

She fears it, yes, but she does not hate it, for all her life and into her death as well. It shouldn’t trouble her now, though. It is easy to hide a language, and she burned her journals before she was called to the fortress.

This is a fic about Jhia and her one (1) converted Kuva Lich, namely about the process of said Lich’s defeat and defection, that kinda never got off the ground. Contrary to this snippet, I think most of it would have been written in what are essentially space emails back and forth between Lich and Tenno? I definitely got as far as Jhia sending an audio recording of a bass-boosted dog fart, anyhow.

---

Wake Up, Tenno - Warframe - one-shot - 950 and counting

“Wake up, Tenno.”

She wakes. She is - she is Tenno, right? She is a Tenno? Her mind is confused, so full of fog and dead ends - how long was she asleep?

The voice that woke her seems familiar. She might have loved the speaker, in her scrambled past life, the woman in the purple helmet, the one called Lotus in her HUD vision. Her surroundings are a ruin of some sort. Her body is—

...what?

She can move just fine. Her fingers and arms and legs respond with suspicious ease, given how long she must have slept to be this scattered upon waking up, and yet there’s some fundamental disconnect. This is her Warframe, her body, but it’s not her body somehow.

...wait, where did the term “Warframe” come from?

A Tenno, unnamed but intended to be Jhia on my end, wakes up on Earth at the very beginning of the in-game storyline. Since the tutorial has gotten an overhaul in recent months, I may have to modify even what little I have on this a lot.

---

Midnight - Iconoclasts - poem - 280 and counting

been anything smaller than been anything

never been anything smaller than

“good morning, how’s miss grump doing today? i heard about that last mission...if you didn’t sleep well i can call you in sick, it’s alright-” “oh, shut up, grey”

there has never been anything

“oh, shut up, grey” “love you too”

smaller

“love you too”

than

me

A very fragmented, stream-of-consciousness-y poem meant to represent Agent Black’s failing sanity near the end of the game. The words of her famous one-liner (“there has never been anything smaller than me”) are interspersed, out of order until the end, with poetic descriptions of other characters and bits and pieces of a flashback involving Agent Grey.

---

Heliotropism - Iconoclasts - one-shot - 1.1k and counting

Lily, though she’s superstitious, will have none of these self-important truths, none of these semblances of certainty when really all it is is wishing on Ivory and hoping for the best. She calls for Miss Andress instead. 

A stout but severe woman with ten grandchildren and a great-grandchild on the way, Miss Andress is perhaps the quintessential matriarch: nurturing, selfless, brutally honest. She is the one the people of 17 trust when they feel they can trust no one else. Lily needs the kind of reassurance only she can give, with the authority of ninety-one years and the wisdom of two sons, one daughter, and some five dogs raised under her care.

When Miss Andress visits House 4, she asks Polro and Lily to each bring an object they cherish the most. For Polro it’s his largest wrench, pitted with use but still polished to a brassy shine; Lily surprises everyone by pulling out a tiny, unloaded stun-gun, and surprises them more by not explaining it at all. Miss Andress doesn’t question it. She just turns the two tools over and over in her hands, head bowed, squinting at them as if trying to read the secrets of the universe in the scratches carved into them by time.

Finally she straightens up and sighs, pushing a strand of silver hair behind her ear. Her forehead is slick with sweat, though the night is cool outside. “I don’t know what she’ll do,” the wise woman says, heavily, as if delivering bad news. “I just know she’ll change the world.”

Can you tell I like backstory fic? This one is for Robin, with one short anecdote for each year of her life, up to age 17 and the events of the game. It’s also an excuse to world-build a bunch, lol.

---

Arrhythmia - Crypt of the NecroDancer - one-shot(?) - 4k and counting

The creature didn’t say anything, just beckoned to the shadows. Before I could move, two other creatures came for me, sending the other humans - former humans? - scrambling away in panic. One landed a hard blow on the back of my head that sent me to my hands and knees, seeing sparks; the other said “Freeze!” and I could only watch as ice sprouted from the leaf litter, cementing me to the ground.

The one who’d hit me produced a dagger from the inside of its cloak. I tried to pull myself up, to do anything at all to keep myself from getting shanked, but it was no good. There must have been a secondary effect on that spell; my limbs wouldn’t respond. I felt the dagger tear cloth in the region of my back, and prepared for the pain.

It didn’t come. The creature cut a slit in the back of my tunic, then another. Neither one touched the skin at all. I can’t really describe what happened next - my brain was having trouble computing how my arms were in front of me, visible, unable to move, but it felt like the creature was pulling them through the gashes in my tunic, but that was wrong, they didn’t feel like arms at all.

“Holy fuck,” I heard someone say.

The ice holding me down melted into nothing as the spell wore off. I jumped back up, head spinning a little, ready for another fight, only to spot two flicks of scarlet in my peripheral vision. I spun around, but they moved with me.

I think I already knew what they were. I just couldn’t admit it to myself.

You’ve already seen this one, Nick, though I’m pretty sure it was well over two years ago. It’s a pile of old headcanons, some of them now outdated I’m pretty sure, about how Nocturna ended up a vampire in the first place and a little bit about how vampire society works. According to Google Docs, I’ve been stuck on this one since March 2018. Whoops.

---

untitled (working title “adult citra meets an impostor bc what is self-control”) - Among Us - one-shot - 572 and counting

“I know. You’re stuck, aren’t you?” Having well and truly gotten their full attention, Citra continues, “God, I can barely imagine. Having to take a weird-ass host whose biology might even be toxic to you, I don’t know. Needing to get to a whole other galaxy, feeling like the only way to do that is by deception and death.” “How…?”

She sighs. “I told you, this isn’t my first rodeo. One of your kind saved my life when I was a kid. Since he’d killed Mom and Dad had been out of the picture long before, he stayed here and helped raise me afterward. It’s how I learned to pronounce...a few of your words, at least.”

“You missed the ‘H’ sound.”

“Isn’t that the one that’s literally impossible to do right with Terran anatomy?”

“Maybe. You think I know Terran anatomy all that well?”

Citra chuckles. “Fair point. You let us find your buddy and fix the ship, I’ll raise Xai when we get comms back and he can try and help you get home. Deal?”

I found an Among Us comic on Tumblr, absolutely ran into left field with it to make a couple of OCs, and then made AUs of those OCs because of course I did. This one is from a future scenario in which Citra (typically orange) meets someone rather familiar on a mission with the crew of the Skeld.

---

untitled (working title “library of ruina but they adopt half the guests”) - Library of Ruina - length uncertain - 1k and counting

“And what happened to not caring about others because it’s a waste of time and heartache?”

Now it’s Roland’s turn to sigh. “I don’t care about him. I just don’t want the guilt of killing - look at him, he can’t be older than eighteen or nineteen!”

Raised eyebrow. “Finn will be twenty years old in fifteen days’ time. He is a legal adult. I fail to see why this should matter to either of us.”

“He’s fresh off his first Fixer license! I have years of experience! He had no idea what he was getting into when he signed that invitation and you know it!”

Angela fixes him with a glare that turns his stomach, his freshly remade body reacting to the memory of its sudden, and extremely painful, dismemberment. “I could quite literally hold your soul in my hands if I wanted,” she reminds him in an undertone of steel. “I must do the same for him, following the invitation’s guidance, or my entire plan will be lost, my coworkers’ sacrifices all for naught. Do not disappoint me or ask any more impertinent questions. You know what to do, and what will happen if you do not.” 

Look, some of the people you fight in this game deserved so much better, okay? I came up with an AU concept where if a guest willingly concedes the fight and agrees to stick around, you can get their book without killing them. Finn doesn’t die; neither do Tomerry or Shi Association; all the former employees realize exactly what’s going on with Philip after the Wedge Office fight and manage to calm him down, avoiding the whole Crying Children situation. (And then Gebura makes him collect his jaw off the floor by revealing herself as the Red Mist.)

---

The one that’s a D&D world concept doesn’t have anything concrete written for it yet. (Don’t read this bit if you might want to play in my campaign at some point!) Instead of your typical Forgotten Realms planar setup, the world at large would be called the Seven Spheres, each of them different in terms of climate, geography, native species and magic, etc. The First Sphere would be the most “generic” one (to our way of thinking) and the main setting of the campaign; it would also be the smallest of the Seven, its primary continent home to a former empire of dragons that spanned most of the Sphere until its mysterious fall a thousand years ago.

Now, since the empire fell, the dragons and their children have slowly been dying out. Best estimates are that there’s only a thousand or two left in the entire First Sphere, with fewer eggs hatched every decade. The player characters enter a world with pretty typical low-level quests to start with, but every so often, especially if they engage with optional story stuff (this would be a more roleplay-focused than combat-focused campaign), they get wind of changes in the air - a failed harvest here, an unusually hot and stormy summer there, a trade war once they start hitting mid-levels.

It mimics real-world climate change in all but cause. As coastal cities struggle to contend with rising seas and, more alarmingly, wizards all over the Sphere start to notice their magic falter and wane, the PCs’ goal becomes getting to the bottom of this. And what’s at the bottom is...your typical Nerd fusion of science with fantasy settings.

The Seven Spheres are not planes of existence in the normal D&D sense, but seven planets in the same solar system, each with its own ancient god far more powerful than any god in any mortal pantheon; the First Sphere is so named because it’s closest to the sun. These planetary gods are incredibly large and incredibly alien, thinking in geologic time and concepts far too broad and slow for most sapient beings to comprehend. A thousand years ago, the fall of the dragon empire was caused by an ill-advised ritual meddling with the god of the First Sphere’s natural process of rebirth, causing said god to die without a replacement.

It’s taken this long for the First Sphere to feel the effects because, again, geologic time - a thousand years is a blink of an eye in this kind of time scale. But now the ancient earth-magic that had kept the Sphere’s climate temperate and its magicians in business is failing. The dragons, as beings of magic intrinsically, have been failing all along. And now it’s up to the PCs, up at level 17-20 if not higher by that point, to figure out how to fix the situation and find a new planetary god for the First Sphere before the whole Sphere burns to death.

[rsadelle]

WIP Amnesty: Nick&Harry or Gryles kidfic (4500 words, General audiences)

At one time, I wrote the beginning of a story about Nick and Harry having a baby together. I hadn’t decided if it was going to be an endgame Gryles story or a story that ends up with Nick and Harry and their shared children and individual partners living in a house together. I also started writing this before I read up on surrogacy in the UK (which is very different from surrogacy in the US), so I left in the note I sent to the friend I was emailing bits of this story to about that element where it originally was.

They're drinking when they first come up with the idea. Nick is well and properly pissed, and Harry's had a few but is probably more drunk with exhaustion than alcohol since he just came off of tour and looks like he could crawl into bed and sleep for a year.

"I just really, really want to have kids," Nick is saying. "I think I'm really ready to be a good dad."

"I want kids," Harry says. "I spent a lot of time thinking about it on tour."

"On your world tour," Nick puts in.

Harry gives him the ghost of a smile. "On my world tour, yeah. I want kids. I would have kids now, yeah? But no one wants to be with me, so I don't."

"Millions of women," Nick says. "Millions of women want to have your baby, Harold."

"Yeah, but not really. They just think they do. They don't know me. And the ones who do don't want to stay with me."

"That's quite self-pitying," Nick says, "when you're a popstar and I'm a washed up old man of a DJ who isn't even wanted by other washed up gay men who want to have kids."

Harry rolls his head against the back of Nick's sofa to look at him. His hair is doing something ridiculous that still looks amazing. "We should have a kid."

"Think you're forgetting the part where neither of us has a uterus," Nick points out.

Harry waves a hand. "There are other ways. We could adopt."

"Harold, no one is going to let two blokes who aren't even a couple adopt a baby even if one of them is international popstar Harry Styles."

"Surrogate, then," Harry says. "That's a thing people do."

"And then what?" Nick asks. "We all move into your unfurnished mansion? I'm not doing that. I love this house. I'm not moving out of this house."

Harry shrugs. "Then I'll move in here. Plenty of space for you and me and a kid." He blinks slowly. "Maybe not a live-in nanny. Probably need a nanny of some sort, for when you're at work and I'm away."

"You're mad, Harold," Nick says. "You're going mad and one day when I go to work, I'm going to go to Tina with the news and it's all going to be about how international popstar Harry Styles used to be famous and brilliant and now he's gone mad and is being committed to an insane asylum. Do they still have those?"

"Dunno," Harry says. "Reckon I'll find out, yeah?"

It's just one of those conversations they have when they're pissed and exhausted, all punchy and ridiculous. Or at least that's what Nick thinks when he remembers it the next morning.

*

"Remember that thing we talked about the other day?" Harry asks.

They've talked about many things in the last few days, the last two weeks, really, since Harry's been back from tour. Not to mention all the things they'd texted about while Harry was on tour. Also, Nick is rather more concerned with picking the best of the pictures they took with Pixie and Aimee before they went out to post to Instagram to pay a lot of attention.

"You're going to have to be more specific."

Harry leans over his shoulder to peer at Nick's phone. "That one." It's one where they're all making silly faces in the mirror, and it's slightly off-center because Aimee had made Nick laugh too hard to hold his phone steady.

"I'm not posting that one," Nick says. "It makes me look totally incompetent as a selfie-taker." He picks one of the other ones, where they all look hot, uploads it and tags it. Then he goes back to the one Harry liked and texts it to him.

"About having a kid," Harry says.

"Yes," Nick says. "I remember you're going mad."

Harry leans into Nick's shoulder and laughs. "I'm not going mad. My biological clock is ticking."

Nick tucks his phone into his pocket and turns his attention to Harry. "Your biological clock? You're twenty-four."

"And you're-" Harry cuts himself off with a laugh when Nick glares at him. "Don't tell me yours isn't. I know better."

Nick turns to fully face him. "Yes, Harold, we have established that I'm going to grow old childless and alone."

"No," Harry says vehemently. "No, that's what I'm saying. We should."

Nick blinks at him; he's had at least one too many drinks for this conversation. "We should what?"

"Have a kid." Harry shifts closer. "Look, we could do this. We wouldn't be alone and we'd get to be parents."

Nick could see raising a kid with Harry. They have a similar outlook on life. They probably have similar ideas about raising kids. And if they weren't who they are, if Harry weren't who he is, Nick would say yes in a heartbeat. But part of what makes him think he's ready to be a dad is that he's working to be responsible these days.

"We can't do that," Nick says, like a responsible adult. "Harry, you know what it was like before, with the papers and everything. If we had a kid, every paper in the world would be talking about us dating, even the really serious ones."

Harry makes a frustrated noise.

"Come on, popstar, do you really want to go through that again?"

Emily all but crashes into them. "What are you two doing over here whispering in the corner? This is a party. Come dance." She hauls them out onto the dance floor, and that's the end of that, Nick thinks.

*

Nick's just settling into bed when his phone rings with Harry's name on the screen. Harry, who is in LA for meetings.

"Popstar, you're terrible at time zones. I'm just going to bed."

"I know," Harry says. "I wanted to talk to you."

"And you've interrupted my sleep schedule to do it? Go on then."

"No," Harry says, which is a weird thing to say when he called specifically to talk, but then he goes on. "I don't really want to go through all that again, all the media and everything. But it's going to be like that with anyone I have kids with."

"Not everyone you might have kids with is an older gay man who many people think corrupted your youth." Nick tries to say it lightly, but he knows there's a sting that goes with it.

"You didn't," Harry says, "and everyone important knows that. I want to have a kid, and I don't want to do it alone. I think we could be good parents."

Nick rubs his forehead. "Harry, it's not that I doubt that. It's just all the things that come with it."

Harry hmms a little. "I know it's a lot, and it would be hard. I think we could handle it, for us and for the kid. Promise me you'll think about it. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Just think about it for real."

"Okay," Nick says. "I promise. I'll think about it sometime when I'm not about to go to sleep."

Harry chuckles. "Sleep well."

"You're not going to sing me a lullaby?"

"Mmm, all right, it'll be good practice for the kid."

Nick closes his eyes while Harry sings, and is just awake enough to mumble a goodnight when he's finished.

*

Nick thinks about it, on his way to work, when he does a big shop, when he's making a Sunday roast. Part of him wants to say yes and damn the consequences. He could be a dad, with one of his best mates, which he's pretty sure is the only way he's ever going to get to be a dad at this rate. He thinks about buying tiny baby clothes and telling kid stories on the radio and having a co-parent who he knows how to talk to and argue with. And then he thinks about paparazzi and mobs of fans and tabloid insinuations, and about their kid growing up with that. He thinks about trying to date and explain that he's not cheating on anyone by doing it. He thinks about being home alone with a kid while Harry's on tour for months at a time.

"Do you think I should have a kid with one of my friends?" he asks Aimee.

She looks up from where she's been petting Pig and Stinky. "Are you thinking about asking one? Oh God, you're not asking me are you?"

She sounds so horrified that Nick laughs. "No, I'm not asking you."

"Thank God. I love you, but I'm not doing that again unless I get to keep the kid. So who are you going to ask?"

"It's more like they asked me." Nick downs half his glass of wine. "Harry wants to have a kid."

Aimee stares at him, downs the rest of her glass of wine, and refills both of their glasses. "Did he fall in love with you after all these years? Oh, God, you didn't fall in love with him, did you?"

"No, and ta very much for thinking I'm that stupid."

Aimee shrugs at him.

"I'm not," Nick says with a laugh. He sips his wine and sighs. "Harry wants a kid, I want a kid, he made me promise to think about doing it."

Aimee hmms.

"It's stupid, right? Harry and me having a kid. It'd be like, paparazzi everywhere and never getting laid again and doing it alone while he's on tour for months."

"You could get laid," Aimee says. "It's dating that would be harder."

"Yes, thank you, very supportive."

Aimee laughs and leans over to pat his shoulder. "I can't make the choice for you, babe."

*

Conversations with any of Nick's other friends would only end up the same way the one with Aimee did, so he doesn't bother. He does invite Harry to come over after he gets back from LA, and they settle onto the sofa with cups of tea and biscuits.

Harry transitions with an easy smile from a story about an amazing taco place he found in LA to asking, "Have you thought about it?"

"Yeah," Nick says. "Thought about it a lot." He cups both hands around his cup. "How would you see it working, exactly?"

"We have a baby," Harry says. "Surrogate probably, easier to get a kid we can raise right from the beginning. We'll do up one of your spare rooms for the nursery and everyone we know will buy us outrageous baby gifts. I'll move into the other one. I'm supposed to do writing for the next album, but I can do it here. Do all the recording and production here, can probably time it so I'm here most days for at least most of the first year. We'll hire a nanny, someone really good and trustworthy so we can go to work when we have to and not worry about our kid. Sometimes the lads or our mums or our friends will babysit instead. And then I'll go on tour, and that part's going to be hard, really hard. Dunno if I'll be able to schedule in some breaks so I can come home for a few days here and there. Maybe later, when the kid's older, you can take some holiday and you can both come with me."

It's a life. He's painted the picture of a life Nick can see himself leading. Nick rubs his thumb against his cup. "What about if you meet someone? Someone you want to have a real relationship with or marry, or whatever?"

Harry reaches out and covers Nick's hand with his, stopping his fidgeting. "Then I make it clear to them how much my kid means to me, and how much being dads with you means to me. And then I move out, or we all move into someplace bigger."

Nick has to laugh at that. "A Harry Styles commune?"

Harry grins at him. "Well, why not? And maybe you'll have a boyfriend or husband to bring along too."

Nick looks down at Harry's hand still over his, and asks the hard question, the really shitty question. "Do you think it's fair for us to bring a kid into the world when we know the papers are going to be so awful about it?"

Harry draws in a breath and takes his hand back. "I think we can protect them from the worst of it for a long time and tell them we love them over and over. Lou's doing it and managing."

"This is entirely mad, isn't it?" Nick says, and he knows it's a surrender.

Harry nods brightly. "Yep! We doing it anyway?"

Nick can't help smiling back at him. "Yeah. Yeah, reckon we are."

*

[Kid fic: For the parental order thing in the UK, the parents have to be partners living as a family (some verbiage like that), so something that will have to change is that they're going to have to decide that they just won't comment and let people think they're together-together.]

Harry moves in. They don't make too much of a fuss about it, but they don't try to be quiet about the fact that they've moved everything from one of Nick's guest rooms to Harry's place and replaced them with Harry's things. They don't bother trying to hide from the paps when they go to dinner or do a big shop together. They take pictures with fans who stop them while they're walking the dogs. Neither of them particularly like to be alone, which means they're out and about together a lot.

One of those trips is to see Harry's lawyers, who are far more impressive than Nick's. There's one Harry knows, who introduces them to another one of the lawyers he describes as "our family proceedings expert." There's a dizzying amount of information that they take in and decide not to talk about later that day in favor of their tea and crap telly.

They have a few conversations about how to go about finding a surrogate, and Nick, curled up around his laptop where Harry can't see just what he's doing, googles it and reads up on how other people go about it. It's one of those things, he thinks, that would be easier if they weren't who they are.

In the end, it's Gemma who finds them someone, an old friend of hers who got pregnant as a teenager and gave the baby up for adoption. She's called Chloe, and she has dark hair, a wide smile, and friendly eyes.

"It sounds mad, I know," she says over a cup of tea when they invite her round so they can meet, after they've gotten to know each other a bit. "I loved being pregnant, but I don't want to be a mum. I've thought about doing this before, but never really looked into it much. I've split up with my boyfriend now and I've been thinking about leaving my job, so this seems like a good time for it." She smiles at them. "Plus Gemma said you're lovely and you really want to have a baby."

"We really, really do," Nick says. He's been trying not to feel it too deeply, in case it all goes wrong, but having this girl in his house talking about carrying their child is making it hard not to want it so much.

"Yeah," Harry says, hushed and sincere.

Nick grasps for the thread of the conversation; interviewing people is his actual job. "What did you love about being pregnant?" A bit personal, perhaps, but they are talking about her carrying a child for them.

"I could feel it, you know," Chloe says. "The baby growing and how my body was changing for it. Bit miraculous, that. And then I met the adoptive parents, and it was like I could do this really amazing thing for these people who wanted the baby, and I knew the baby would be happy."

Harry reaches over and grips Nick's arm. Nick has a very hard time not reaching back to do the same.

"And the baby was, um, healthy?" Harry asks. He looks sorry to be asking it, and anxious to know all at the same time. About how Nick feels then.

"Completely," Chloe says. "I'm not, like, involved in her life, but her parents send me pictures at Christmas. She's doing really good." Chloe has a folder with her, and she pulls out a stack of Christmas cards with photos of a smiling little girl who gets older with each one.

Harry's eyes are a bit damp when they're done flipping through them. "She's beautiful."

Nick stacks the pictures together and hands them back to Chloe. He looks at Harry, meets his eyes for a long moment, and he can see it, that they both want Chloe to be their surrogate. Nick's the one who talks for a living, so he bites the bullet and asks the hard question.

"We'll pay for all of your expenses of course, if you agree to do it, that is. There are other things that might make being a surrogate for us a bit," he pauses to try to find the right word, "difficult. We're a bit well-known. There are paparazzi taking our picture when we do a big shop, for God's sake. You'll get caught up in it, if you do this. People taking your picture and assuming things about you." Nick tries not to sound too bitter about it. "And after, too. Seeing the baby in the papers. You should," he swallows, because he'll be so disappointed, they'll both be so disappointed if she doesn't want to do this for them, "think about it. If you can handle that." Now it's his turn to reach out and grip Harry's arm too tight. "We'll understand if you decide you can't."

"Gemma talked to me about that a bit," Chloe says.

"It's a bit mad," Harry says, "all of it. But we manage, and we'd do everything we possibly could to make it easier for our kid."

Chloe nods. "I can promise I'll consider it seriously."

They make sure she has both their numbers before she goes, and she hugs them both at the door.

"We really want this," Harry says, earnest and sincere in a way Nick can never quite manage even when he means it. "We want you to be our surrogate." That's where he falters and says, a bit less intensely, "If you want to do it."

"I'll let you know soon," Chloe promises.

When she's gone, Harry turns into Nick for a hug that's almost too tight and goes on and on. Nick doesn't mock him for it, holds on just as tight.

"I want her to say yes," Harry says.

Nick squeezes him just a bit tighter. "Me too."

*

They try not to worry at it while they're waiting to hear back from Chloe. Nick goes to work and tells stories on the radio about his dogs. Harry does whatever it is he has to do. Some of it is songwriting, Nick knows, because some days he'll come home to Harry sat on the sofa with a notebook and a guitar. They go out or stay in for their tea, depending on how they feel. They text each other and their friends and their families, and Harry hands Nick his phone to say hi to Anne when she calls.

They have people over, Aimee and Ian, Henry, Gillian, Pixie and George, for a Sunday roast. They're a congenial group, laughing and chattering over their food and wine. They move to the sofas and armchairs in the sitting room after, still laughing and talking in smaller groups that overlap and reform as people join in and out of conversations.

Nick's phone buzzes, but he's listening to Pixie's story about a mishap involving a dress, some too-high heels, and a bottle of champagne, so he ignores it for the moment.

Something, some reaction ripples from the other side of the room, enough that Pixie pauses and she and Nick look up at everyone else. Harry's got tears in his eyes, and he stumbles his way across the room, nearly tripping over the rug and people's feet and the dogs.

"Nick," he says, and he has his phone held out. His hands are shaking, and Nick's do too when he tries to steady it so he can read it.

It's a text from Chloe, probably the same thing that made his phone buzz.

You're both lovely. I thought about it, and I can handle all the madness that goes with your lives. I'd like to be your surrogate if you still want me to be. Text me and we can schedule signing papers and things.

The sound Nick makes is completely involuntary, and then his eyes are tearing up and he flings his arms around Harry, who hugs him back, and then they're both laughing and crying and they must seem completely mad to everyone else.

Over Harry's shoulder, Nick tells everyone else, "We've got a surrogate."

A general cheer goes up, Aimee opens another bottle of wine, and it becomes even more of a party. Everyone stays too late, celebrating even though Nick says, "We don't have a baby yet."

"We're going to," Harry says, grinning wide enough to split his face.

After everyone is gone, when Nick is lying in bed failing to fall asleep because now that they have a surrogate he's starting to worry about all the ways it could go wrong, Harry knocks lightly on Nick's door and then lets himself in.

"Can't sleep?" Nick asks, quiet in the dark.

"No." Harry climbs into bed with Nick. "We're really going to do this."

"Yeah, popstar, we are." Nick nudges Harry with his elbow. "It was your idea."

"I know," Harry says. "It's different when it's real." He's quiet for a moment, and then he says, in a slow, dreamy voice, "Tiny baby toes, you know?"

"Oh my God," Nick says. "Yes." Then it strikes him all as hilarious - he may be a bit drunk - and he starts to laugh.

Harry says, "Hey," the sound drawn out, but then he laughs too, and they giggle together for a bit. When their laughter dies down, Harry says, "It's not all tiny baby toes. Going to be a lot of work too."

"Before we have the baby too," Nick says. "Going to have to do up the nursery. Could paint it pink, the only punk color and all that."

Harry laughs. "No, don't want to force that on the kid if it's a girl."

"Could paint it all white, put up art all over. Bright florals like your suits to remind the kid about you when you're on the road."

"No, no, no," Harry says. "That's good for on stage, but the nursery should be calming."

"But not," Nick says, "like those sickly calming colors you see in hospital."

"Got to be nice ones," Harry says. "Could do a yellow, a nice pale one, or green."

"It'd have to be a nice green," Nick says, "not one that looks like sick."

"Only nice things for our kid," Harry says.

"Only the best things for our kid," Nick corrects.

Harry hits his arm, although it's more like he lets his arm flop over onto Nick. "We are not going to be awful celebrity parents who spoil their kids."

"'Course not," Nick agrees. "Solid Northerners, we are. We know how to raise kids right."

"Kids," Harry says dreamily. "We're going to be parents."

Nick rubs Harry's arm where it's still half flopped over him. "Got a surrogate," he says. "Still a ways to go before we're dads."

"It'll happen," Harry says. He sounds absolutely certain, and Nick lets himself borrow some of that confidence and believe it'll work out.

*

They meet with Chloe and the lawyers, theirs as well as one she brings along, on Wednesday,

"Technically," the lawyers explain, "surrogacy contracts are unenforceable in the UK. However, you want to have everything in writing so you do know what you agreed to."

The lawyers take them through all the little bits and pieces of the contract, and all the details about what has to happen after the baby is born before the baby legally belongs to both of them. It's a lot to take in. They all sign the papers, and then it's really official, pending medical tests and actual pregnancy, of course.

On Thursday, Nick goes straight from the radio to a meeting with his agent, part of which is a phone conference with Harry, his agent, and his PR people where they work out the basics of a plan for making statements and protecting Chloe and their eventual child as much as they can.

On Friday, Nick goes home and flops onto the sofa next to Harry, who has a guitar on his lap. Nick listens to him play for a few minutes, then tips his head to look at him. "Lullabies?"

"Practicing," Harry says with a shrug. He strums for another minute, then lets the music fade out. "We should figure out who's going to, uh, be the biological father."

"You," Nick says promptly.

Harry frowns. "You don't want to talk about it?"

Nick shrugs. "All the things about surrogacy say if one father is going to stay home with the kid, the other one should be the biological father so they still have a connection. I'm going to be here, you're going to be touring."

"I'll be here for the first year, probably," Harry says. "I'll be here with the baby while you're at work, and by the time I go on tour, I'll have a connection."

Nick rests a hand on Harry's knee. "You don't want a kid with your smile? You and Chloe will make beautiful children."

"So will you and Chloe." Harry meets Nick's eyes. "Don't you want that?"

Nick has had a lot of time to think about this. "I never really thought I would have biological kids. And it's not like the Grimshaw genes are going to die out. Jane and Andy have kids." Nick looks down at his hand on Harry's knee. "I'd like to raise a kid with your smile." He looks up at Harry. "After all, I practically raised you."

The sound Harry makes is half laugh and half squawk. "You did not! I was an adult when I met you."

"You were seventeen. People thought I was your dad. I taught you about fashion and navigating the best clubs in London. I introduced you to people."

Harry laughs with his whole body. "You hated that people thought you were my dad! I was already basically grown up!"

"I was a mentor to you!"

"I can't believe you," Harry says, shaking his head. "You were my friend. I didn't need mentoring."

"Ah, you were a right mess," Nick says with a grin.

"I was not!" Harry protests through his laughter.

Nick can't help laughing with him. It's nice.

When their laughter fades out, Harry puts the guitar down and leans his elbows on his knees. "If I do this, you're fathering the next one."

"The next one? God, we haven't even had one kid, and you're already planning for more?"

Harry shrugs and holds out his hand. "Do we have a deal?"

Nick shakes his hand. "Deal."

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

My WIPs: Ranting About the State of my Writing

Hey, all. This started as a WIP update on my fic “Aftermath” and kind of turned into a rant about how frustrated I am that I don’t have time to write properly. Sorry about that. I’ve put most of it below the cut, so feel free to skip. Normally, I would just delete the post as being irrelevant, but honestly I have a lot of feels all jumbled up in my brain right now, and I need to dig some out and send them into the world. So here it is, a post born of pure frustration.

I’ve mentioned "Aftermath” a few times, but I figured I’d give you all an update, and also an explanation as to what’s going on with this fic, which was supposed to be the next big historical story in my series, “Sawdust of Words.”

Now, you may recall that I spent a long time working on a truly mind-boggling angst-fest known as “What it Means to Be A Demon.” About 3/4 of the way through, I really needed a break to work on something a bit lighter.

(Spoilers below the break, but nothing very specific, followed by grumbling)

I had a pretty cute idea. Aziraphale and Crowley’s first big night of drinking! And it ends (spoiler alert) with the two of them passed out together! Ooh, and Aziraphale covers Crowley with his wing, because of course he does! Awww!

So I settle in and start with this opening scene of Crowley waking up to find himself hungover and a certain angel lying much closer than expected, then I planned to quickly flash back to the start of the drinking. Gotta show how they met up, etc.

Obviously, I had to stop and think it through. “Demon” takes place around 2400 BC, and there was already a reference to them meeting up and drinking together at a festival in the mid-2600s. So it had to be before then. And my outline for the series has them not seeing each other between Eden and Noah’s Ark.

There were two things I could do here. I could set this story sometime in the three centuries between the Ark and the referenced festival...or I could have them meeting up shortly after the Ark.

Anyone who knows me knows that given the choice between a fun, lighthearted story about two pals drinking and an angst fest about a catastrophic flood...well, there’s really only one way I’m going to go.

It’s fine, I thought. It’s not like I have lots of specific things to say about the Flood. I’ll just quickly go over the events at the Ark, then have them bump into each other a few years later. The plan was to do all this in nested flashbacks.

But that meant I had to think about what they both did the first few years after the Flood. And, surprisingly, I found a whole lot of angst!

This quickly took over the story, making it into a pretty heavy angst-fest. So I restructured it as a hurt/comfort - show the hurt of the Flood, followed by the comfort of them getting drunk and commiserating, and a bit of fluff of them accidentally passing out together cuz like, we really need that!

I wrote the hurt bits pretty quickly, and they got much worse than expected. I may have...um...broken Aziraphale a little. So I wanted to make the comfort more detailed to balance it. Which meant researching the places they were going to travel to so I could do a nice, rapid montage.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I’m...really addicted to historical details in my fics. Things quickly got way out of hand. Each short scene for the montage took at least a week of research, usually two, and then each grew long enough to become a chapter in its own right, and the “brief comfort montage” turned into a slow play-by-play exploring the healing process and some deeper parts of the angst. Which leaves me really stumped on what to do with the “cute, lighthearted passing out” ending I’d started from.

Somewhere around the 20k mark, I realized that this story (now 10 times longer than I’d planned and nowhere near finished) was quite likely going to be the death of me. Don’t get me wrong. I really like it. I want to share it with everyone. Not to mention I’ve tied it into several parts of the overall “Sawdust of Words” storyline, so it does need to be finished!

But because of the way it grew and evolved, it doesn’t have the tight pacing of “Demon,” or the clear theme structure of “Early Days.” And now I’m really exhausted because researching neolithic and early bronze age cultures is fascinating but not bloody easy especially when you don’t have access to an academic library. And since it was originally intended to be written as nested flashbacks, all the reveals are in really weird places in the story’s timeline.

This is the one that I’ve commented both I and my beta are too burnt out to try and fix. I went through it today, moving around pieces to try and get it into its final-ish form (final-ish because there’s still several parts that need to be written, and knowing me this could be another 10k, but at least I’ve identified most of the chapter breaks). I think it can be fixed. It’s worse than “Demon” was at its messiest phase, but it’s not as bad as, say, that one story I started writing in high school and finally gave up on after grad school. (Ask me about that some time. Fun fact: in 8 years of writing, I never gave it a title!)

It’s just that, with everything going on, I don’t have time to settle in and work on it. I don’t have time to research the three remaining stops to a degree I find satisfying, and because the character arc took a bit of a turn I can’t leave them out, either. I don’t want to start any new “Sawdust” stories until I’ve at least checked off a few of the ones I already have on my timeline (including this one, and Ancient Greece story, an Ancient Rome one, a 1968 story, and several after the apocalypse that are intended to reference these as well as get some healing for all the angst I’ve caused). About the only way I can actually get it finished is if I stop writing entirely for a few weeks, and I’ve actually tried more than once and it still hasn’t been enough time.

I really don’t know what to do next. I’m also signed up to write an aromantic Good Omens story for early May and I did write one...it just turned out super melancholy and strange because, ya know, the world right now, I had feels. And it feels strange to submit that? So I tried to start a new one with more lighthearted character moments, and I have plenty of ideas but I just...can’t...find the time.

It’s why I’ve been writing a lot of shorter one-offs (and one adrenaline-fueled insane story, “A Cunning Plan”) -- it’s a chance to step away from all the ideas that have gotten away from me and focus on something that’s just fun. Unfortunately, the longer stories don’t actually get written in the mean time.

So that’s where I am. I’m trying to keep the quality of my stories up to my usual standard, while also producing stuff because I know how much people want to read right now (as much as I want to write). But that might mean these longer historical stories are off the menu for the time being.

(That does not free you all from the angst, though. Keep in mind that both “Obedience” and “Three Little Words” were written in a single sitting!)

[awesomenessg]

OMFG, IT’S YOU. IT’S REALLY YOU. THE CREATIVE MASTERMIND BEHIND THE LEGENDARY IZ ZADR COMIC THEMSELF.

You have absolutely no idea how insanely hyped I was when I saw the notification pop up on my phone that you posted on your blog again after all these years. I truly did think that the project was officially dead, but I didn't wanna be too sad about it since I understand that some projects don't always see to completion.

But then I saw this post, decided to skim through the first couple paragraphs and then...YOU ACTUALLY SAW MY COMIC DUB THAT I MADE FOR MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL??!!

Dude, this is honestly such a huge honor for me. I never intended for that video to get big, I was just in a strong Invader Zim ZaDr kick at the time, and I had instantly fell in love with your comic the moment I finished reading it, so I just had this sudden spark of inspiration to do a dub for it, since there were so many jokes and lines that I felt were too hilarious to just leave on paper and not be voiced aloud. It was just something entirely for fun, it was dumb and silly and it wasn't meant to be taken seriously at all. But now to know that not only so many people saw it and gave positive feedback on it but THE CREATOR OF THE COMIC watched it and loved it and was eventually INSPIRED BY IT to continue the comic after a four year hiatus?! It feels so unreal, I've never felt so noticed before in my entire life lol (Tbch I wasn't sure if you would even be okay with me posting it up in the first place, I sent you a message in your ask box asking for permission but never got a response, so I ended up just deciding to post it up anyway and deal with the consequences later lmao)

Okay, real talk though, when you started talking about how stressful and overwhelming it can be to try to keep up with a project that you promised everyone you would deliver...I could not relate to that more. To tell the truth, that's actually how I have felt about the future of my YouTube channel. After that comic dub video blew up people were begging me to continue to make more videos in the same vein, and at first I thought it could've been the start of something great for my channel, to use this one video as a branching off point to become a regular comic dub making YouTuber. But what went wrong was that I had made the exact same mistake you made, I made promises to everyone that I just couldn't keep. I had so many more ideas for videos in the works, but eventually life got in the way, COVID happened, other things became a more important priority and I just never had the time, until I reached a point where what originally started as nothing more than a hobby turned into a chore that was just too exhausting and draining for me to enjoy doing anymore. I've always had a terrible habit of starting projects but never finishing them, if you just took a quick look at my old high school art class folder you would see what I mean lol, mostly just unfinished WIPS that will sadly probably never see the light of day U.U

I don't wanna make this post too long with my rambling, but what I'm trying to say is that I've been there. I know how hard it can be, to set expectations up for yourself so unbelievably high to where no matter how hard you try to reach it all you ever do is crash and burn. But the fact that you have been doing better and now returned after all this time because of something I MADE that wasn't even originally supposed to be anything special, well that right there just proves to me that maybe there is hope after all. If I really can inspire someone to come out of a dark place and become motivated to enjoy working on their craft again, then...then I now feel inspired to do the same.

I am so stoked to see what more hilarious, adorable, awesome content you have in store for us, just remember to please take your time and don't feel like you need to rush anything. Your mental and physical health comes first and foremost before anything else, so if you ever need to take a break to prioritize that I'm sure we'll all understand, I mean after all we've still stuck with you after four fucking years, so I doubt we'll be going anywhere any time soon lol

One last thing, about your Kofi, I personally would love to support you and your comic, it's just atm I'm not super financially stable myself, but I will still do anything I can possibly can to help, I apologize in advance if it's not much though. Maybe once I finally find a new job and have a regular source of income I will be able to provide much bigger and better support in the future.

Thank you oh so very much for the shout out, I am so glad you loved the dub and that you got some laughs out of it! You've inspired me just as much as I have you! Love and hugs!!! <3 🥰🤗💖

~ Nessa G. 💚

Four Years Later

So, I was deep-cleaning my room the other day for the first time in like two years (god, the dust was disgusting), and I found an old sketchbook of mine. Like, OLD old. The earliest drawing was labeled March 23, 2009–I was 11. 

Most of what was in there was TERRIBLE anime art; you know the stuff. Scoopy noses, eyes that float around on the face, characters conveniently holding their arms behind their backs so you don’t have to draw their hands. Edgy character deaths and thinly-veiled self-inserts comin’ atcha full force. But I’m flipping through this thing, and I’m finding that for the first time in forever, I… don’t hate myself for it? I’m actually finding it cute! Like, “Aww, she’s learning.” Mind-boggling feeling.

So I figured, for old times’ sake, what the heck, let’s go reread Trainwreck too. So I googled the name of the blog (because I’m the kind of person who googles URLs instead of just typing them into the damn URL bar), and I happened across THIS comic dub, by Nessa G.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55skXrjaY-Y&ab_channel=NessaG.

I fucking died.

Seriously, I hope it’s not narcissistic, but I forgot most of the jokes, and everything I drew here was so 100% my own sense of humor that I CRACKED. THE FUCK. UP. (”Fan… squirrels?”) God, I haven’t laughed that hard (or that sincerely) in a long time. And hearing the words I wrote read out loud by another human being was so weird! In a good way, obviously. Thank you for the dub, Nessa. It brought me so much joy. And it’s that video that’s inspiring me to come back to this blog and at least explain what’s going on.

So… Imma be straight with you. (Prepare to be hurled headfirst into a steaming hot pile of TMI.)

When I said I was “busy”, I was flat-out lying. 

I was in a bad place, I had been for a while, and I just… couldn’t draw anymore. Like… at all. God, it was terrifying, it just snuck up on me out of nowhere. I think I worked on maybe three or four projects between 2018-2019, all to help out a family member, and then I just… stopped. Drawing became terrifying, talking to people became terrifying(er)… I basically gave up on art altogether, ghosted everyone I knew, and spent the last four years cooped up studying alone, barely eating or sleeping, scared of anything with a shadow… ACK, it was bad. I looked like a fucking skeleton by the end of it.

Now, I’m not telling you this because I want comfort or sympathy. I’ve actually been doing a lot better over the last six months. If I weren’t, I’d never post something like this–I don’t tell ANYONE my genuine feelings unless I’m already over it. Which is… ~Probably Not Healthy!~ hAhaHAhA *finger guns*

But seriously though. I’ve been reconnecting with the people I love, I’ve been eating more and putting on some weight, I got a long-term freelance position with a translation agency, and I had a breakthrough recently that took away a ton of fear… things are going okay. Importantly, I’m also starting to be more mindful of my own behavioral patterns. I’ve been trying to figure out which habits keep getting me into trouble, and work towards changing them.

One of those bad habits is MAKING PROMISES. 

I have this tendency to promise the moon to people because I’m scared of disappointing or angering them (and because I constantly underestimate how long things will take me). Then I wind up skipping meals and sleep so I can get everything done, getting further and further past my deadlines, stressing and stressing until, before I know it–SKRRCH!–my entire brain comes to a screeching halt, and I shut down.

Obviously, this is bad for me, because I’m putting a ridiculous amount of strain on my own body and mind. Obviously, it’s also bad for other people, because I’m promising them all this stuff and then ditching them out of nowhere. This is just all-around bad, and it’s gotta stop. Sure, there’s this whole sad backstory as to why I do this, but that doesn’t make it okay to continue the behavior.

SO! What I’m getting at here is! When it comes to picking Trainwreck ZADR back up:

I make zero promises.

Drawing a fan comic–ANY comic–is a lot of work. Towards the end, it was taking me like 6-8 hours for just one page. I think I have finally gotten to a place where I want to start drawing again, but… I’m broke as all flying hell. I don’t have an ATA certification or any experience in translation, so I’m working… the kind of job you can get with no credentials or experience. (Bruh, this shit makes less than minimum wage.)

So, jaded though it sounds, if I’m going to be investing that much time and effort into anything other than my translation career, it HAS to be something I’m being paid for, because anxiety or no anxiety if I am not out of my parents’ house by the age of 25 I am going to jump off a fucking bridge. Into a lifeboat. Which I will then sail to the Arctic tundra to live out the rest of my days in obscurity, sucking frozen algae out of a straw for sustenance.

BUT, on the other hand… god, there were so many jokes and gags in Trainwreck that I never got to see to fruition. Watching Nessa’s video made me remember that.

Zim was going to kidnap a goat while wearing a very silly hat. Zita was going to be possessed by a demon, and then “zITARATH” was just gonna BE THERE for the rest of the comic, in the background, nobody addressing it. “Nice dress, Zita!” “tHANK YoU. IT WaS SEWN from tHE SKIN OF MY ENeMiES.” “*gasp* It’s homemade??”

Oh my god, and there was a second song!! I wrote a whole song to the tune of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious where the Tallest find out about The Zadr™ and use it as an excuse to fire Zim! I don’t remember most of the lyrics, they were on my old laptop, but I know it started with “You’re~ in~ an~ interspecies, highly inappropriate relationship!♫♪♪ “

God, that would be fun to draw.

So… possible compromise. No clue how many people are still hanging around, but just a shot in the dark: Would anyone be willing to commission me to finish this comic? I have no clue what my rates would be, cuz I, uh… *ahem* I really haven’t thought that far ahead. I’d have to google copyright laws too, but I… think it’s allowed…??

Alternatively, I could set up a Patreon, and post X number of pages X often depending on how much the monthly income is.

Last option, if there are only like three people still here and you’re all just as broke as I am, I could at least rummage through my old sketchbooks, post whatever snippets I can find, and just tell you where the plot was gonna go. It’s the least I can do after ditching you guys for so long.

So… yup.

Please let me know what your thoughts are about where this comic should go. I’m gonna go finish an assignment, eat something, and possibly fall asleep. I’ll check back with this later to see if there’s any response.

By the way… I’m genuinely sorry for ditching you guys without saying anything. Seriously.

[bellagbear]

Me and my quilt friends at the exhibition

This weekend was the first quilt exhibition WITH MY OWN QUILT in it! Exhibitions will never be the same from this day onwards. Unless they are without my work of course, then they will be very normal.  But all joking aside, I sent my quilt in because I wanted to know how it feels to exhibit my own work and also because sharing is caring. I can tell you that it feels amazing to have my piece hanging there among other quilts as if it’s nothing. It’s a proud moment.

My part of the exhibition was organized by the national quilt guild in the Netherlands of which I am a member. Because of that, I was allowed to send in a piece fitting with the theme ‘Lineplay’ (Lijnenspel). Me and my quilting group, the MOQingbirds, decided to send in some work as a group. In the picture at the top, you see them admiring the quilt I sent in. Besides checking if they put up my quilt the right way around I, of course, also went to admire the quilts of other people and to browse the numerous shops that were attending. I’ll share some pictures of the quilts I saw and I will tell how I made my own.

A miniature quilt exhibition in Rijswijk

This is the Nearly Insane sampler quilt by Salinda Rupp and Liz Lois. I always love to see quilts I am making myself as well.

The nearly insane quilt: a machine quilting sampler

These are quilts by Klazien Hoomans. She told me she bought a lot of red fabric to sell in her shop, but I think we can all see what she did with that fabric…

A MASSIVE quilt. Left is my mother who joined me in this awesome exhibition experience. This is a quilt by Hilda Hoogwaerts.

Three versions of the Delilah design by Jen Kingwell. They had even more versions of this quilt and I loved to see how diverse the same pattern can look.

Some mini quilts that were particularly good in my opinion.

Behind the Lines, the story behind the quilt

Behind the Lines is what I called my quilt. A very fitting name for two reasons. This quilt is made to represent my mental health and how it is sometimes a battle between a lot of colours and cheer and darkness. I am always fighting for the sun to burst through and chase the dark thoughts away. The uneven triangle shapes signify the awesome creative chaos in my mind drifting who knows which way always surprising me. Behind the Lines in that sense means that there can be a lot behind someones cheery enthusiastic appearance.

The second reason is when I asked people what they saw in the quilt I got so many different cool interpretations that I don’t even care my own plan doesn’t come through very well. If art is creating something people have ideas or emotions about, I am very pleased to hear my quilt has that effect! In that sense, the title Behind the Lines means to look beyond the title, and the idea of the maker of the quilt, and to see in it whatever you want. Once you finish and exhibit a quilt, it is not only yours anymore but the quilt becomes part of the world for everyone to interpret. So I am wondering:

What do you see in this quilt and what does the title mean to you?

Look behind the lines mini quilt

The origin story of the quilt

Before I even left for Kenya I started sewing together random scraps of triangle-shaped fabric. The picture below shows the result:

The idea was to create a chaotic looking blanket. How interesting that idea might be, I lost motivation to continue, so this project ended in a box. When I and the MOQingbirds started thinking about our Lineplay quilt I remembered this project. The random shapes of the triangles create an interesting ‘Lineplay’. However, it was not until after my adventure abroad that the idea for this quilt was fully matured. By then I had learned how cathartic it can be to make a quilt or embroidery about something that’s on your mind. I was looking for ways to explain to people how I felt and how my mind works.  To show that its’not only colour and happiness and cheer. Making this quilt also gave me peace of mind to accept that life is a never-ending balance between light, darkness and everything in between.

How this quilt is made

The triangles are appliqued on the dark blue background. After that, I added batting and backing and quilted through all the three layers by machine. For the triangles, I did Stitch in the Ditch, where you sew through the seams. This is a way to make the quilting invisible. In the dark blue fabric, I quilted distorted lines to signify how the mind can sometimes lose track and get messed up.

The sun rays are made by hand with the stem stitch embroidery stitch. That one creates a turn in the floss which makes the rays look alive. I used about six strands of floss in different colours. You can see the turning movement in the picture below.

The end of this story

And that’s the end of another story. As you can see, sometimes you can start with the plan for a quilt, which ends up looking different. Good, but different than expected. Personally, I notice I need to start sewing to have a better idea of the direction I am supposed to go. This always makes it a surprise where I’ll end up which keeps sewing always interesting.

The whole experience of the exhibition and sending in a quilt was so nice. It is inspiring and a lot of fun to see all the quilts of the other people. You can get so many ideas and learn so much. But also I learned a lot by sending in my quilt.  I even put a label on a quilt for the first time! But the most important lesson I learned is that it is good to share the things you make, even when it makes you nervous or when it’s not perfect. People love to see what you make and especially fellow quilters will almost always react with buckets full of encouragement and praise. And who knows, maybe your quilt is just the inspiration somebody else was looking for?

Would you like to know more?

The big quilt: different applique techniques

The Dear Jane quilt: feeling blue

The Dear Jane quilt: a hand quilting sampler

I’m back! Or: Monthly Sewing Update March 2019

And to end things, the goodies I got:

See my DeviantArt or Instagram (username: bella.g.bear.art) for more artwork and WIPs. You can also follow my blog by clicking on the button on the left or by filling in your email address. There will be a monthly update at the end of every month and a new blog post every Sunday or Monday.

‘Look behind the lines’ miniature quilt This weekend was the first quilt exhibition WITH MY OWN QUILT in it! Exhibitions will never be the same from this day onwards.

[chrisstevenson]

First Nations Tribes Matter Too.

After spellbinding the readers by his fabulous imagination in Screamcatcher: Web World, Chris Stevenson, who writes this series by a pen name (Christy J. Breedlove), released the second book of the Scremcatcher series, Screamcatcher – Dream Chasers. Both the books of the Screamcatcher series have created an alternate world that leaves the characters and the readers gasping for air. So, when I got a chance to pick the brains of the very talented Chris Stevenson, I knew it was an opportunity of a lifetime. Join the conversation and get ready to be amazed.

Screamcatcher is one of my favorite series. Nobody could have ever imagined using an innocent-looking dream-catcher as a source of unleashing havoc. How did you come up with this idea? Any interesting story behind the making of this mind-blowing series.

It all started with a dream catcher. This iconic item, which is rightfully ingrained in Indian lore, is a dream symbol respected by the culture that created it. It is mystifying, an enigma that that prods the imagination. Legends about the dream catcher are passed down from multiple tribes. There are variations, but the one fact that can be agreed upon is that it is a nightmare entrapment device, designed to sift through evil thoughts and images and only allow pleasant and peaceful dreams to enter into the consciousness of the sleeper.

I wondered what would happen to a very ancient dream catcher that was topped off with dreams and nightmares. What if the nightmares became too sick or deathly? What if the web strings could not hold any more visions? Would the dream catcher melt, burst, vanish, implode? I reasoned that something would have to give if too much evil was allowed to congregate inside of its structure. I found nothing on the Internet that offered a solution to this problem—I might have missed a relevant story, but nothing stood out to me. Stephen King had a story called Dream Catcher, but I found nothing in it that was similar to what I had in mind. So I took it upon myself to answer such a burning question.

Like too much death on a battlefield could inundate the immediate location with lost and angry spirits, so could a dream catcher hold no more of its fill of sheer terror without morphing into something else, or opening up a lost and forbidden existence. What would it be like to be caught up in another world inside the webs of a dream catcher, and how would you get out? What would this world look like? How could it be navigated? What was the source of the exit, and what was inside of it that threatened your existence? Screamcatcher: Web World, the first in the series, was my answer. I can only hope that I have done it justice.

Your knowledge of Native American Indian culture is evident in many instances. I am sure the readers would love to know more about the subject. How do you know so much about the culture? Is it personal experience or an inclination toward the culture?

It’s primarily researched, and not very much. I’ve always known about the emotional feelings that the First Nations Tribes has/had about their plight and contact with the white man. I knew about their reverent association with nature and the environment. I owe a lot of it to memories from the Boy Scouts of America–about signs, riddles, plants, hunting, and the environment. I’m Scotch/Irish and I’ve never had any tribal friends.

I DID research the construction of the Dream Catcher and what it was made out of. I winged the rest of it, hoping that I was at least on target with what I had to say about them. The Albert White Feather Pike speech at the beginning of the book (about the sad state of the world) were my words straight from my heart. Nothing was quoted. I did not want to ram Indian lore, heritage, and legend down the throat of the reader. There’s just enough to make it sympathetic and interesting.

While we are talking about Native American culture, do you have a favorite legend from any of their mythologies?

Obviously, the Dream Catcher Legend. It was just fascinating to me, filled with whimsy and magic. And the hand-crafted charms are so varied from one type to another; they are just gorgeous works of art, and I mean that by saying the originals that were crafted in the very beginning with gems, beads, and real Eagle feathers. And I’ll be honest, I have NO idea how far the Dream Catcher legend goes back in time. I’m also intrigued by the sweat lodge, and how it is supposed to purify the soul. The legend of the Skinwalker scares me, and I touch upon that just a tiny bit in the last book, Screamcatcher: The Shimmering Eye.

You can remove this question if you do not wish to discuss your pen name This one is for budding authors. Many of the first time authors struggle with the idea of using a pen name. While a majority considers using one only if they are writing a memoir and do not wish to be identified, a few others wish to use one to avoid prejudices based on gender or nationality. Regardless of their reasons, what is your opinion on using a pen name? Is there a formal procedure involved in registering a pen name against your legal name?

I’m a guy and I used a female pen name for my young adult books. I know, pretty strange. Why? Women, I believe, are more prone to writing about true emotions, with truth and accuracy, than men. Especially in romance and young adult, where sometimes a softer touch is needed. Women comprise 65% of all book purchases and they are also the majority of readers. Truly, women are more apt to buy a romance or young adult novel from a woman, in my experience. So I thought that if the “general reading public” saw a female pen name, they might make a spontaneous buy and trust the material. But I always admitted everywhere that the two authors were one and the same–Me. My fans, friends, and readership knew that.

The problem with adopting a pen name is that you have a brand new author out there making a debut, so it is hugely difficult to build a readership in that pen name. No legal problems, not even in contracts. But I must say that two author names have to be merged into one in places like Amazon, GoodReads, and other sites–it gets really tangled and confusing. For budding writers? If you are publishing 10 or more books per year and one genre is romance and the other is science fiction, then two authors just might work. It also depends on how many genres you write in and how many books you have out there. My advice is to go with one name–keep it simple just starting out.

Did you always want to be an author? How did you get into it?

I actually started late, reading, and writing when I was 26 years old. My early writing accomplishment were multiple hits within a few years: In my first year of writing back in 1987, I wrote three SF short stories that were accepted by major slick magazines which qualified me for the Science Fiction Writers of America, and at the same time achieved a Finalist award in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. This recognition garnered me a top gun SF agent at the time, Richard Curtis Associates. My first novel went to John Badham (Director) and the Producers, the Cohen Brothers. It was an extreme honor to be considered. The writer who beat me out of contention for a feature movie (as well as the book), was Michael Crichton’snJurassic Park. My book was called Dinothon.

A year after that I published two best-selling non-fiction books and landed on radio, TV, in every library in the U.S., and hundreds of newspapers. This was at a time when small and mid-sized press paid nice advances and had unlimited distribution.

I have been trying to catch that lightning in a bottle ever since. My YA dystopian novel, The Girl They Sold to the Moon won the grand prize in a publisher’s YA novel writing contest, went to a small auction, and got tagged for a film option. My latest release, Screamcatcher: Web World, just currently won Best YA title of 2019 in the N.N. Light Book Awards contest. I have 13 titles appearing on Amazon, with three more slated for publication. I guess I should stick to Young Adult, which I do love BTW

I have picked out your next book Earth Angel, and I am pretty excited about reading it. Would you like to share anything about the book: plot, character, inspiration?

Not much to tell really, and it’s not terribly original, but I’m guessing at that. I just wondered what would happen if a person had an eye transplant, and that eye came from a gifted medium who really saw a fourth dimension or alternate world through her vision? If that transplanted eye allowed you to see a different world, what in the heck could you possibly see and how would it affect you emotionally? You would either have a superpower, or you would end up going insane. How could a power like that possibly help you in catching a serial killer? Those were the questions I asked. Hey, glad you are looking forward to it!

Who is your favorite character in Screamcatcher series? Did any real-life person inspire this particular character?

My favorite character, modeled in name and personality after my sister, Jory Post, is Jory Pike. Jory Pike’s physical attributes are modeled after my last girlfriend in Las Vegas. I had many reviewers and some beta readers tell me, “Hey! You have Katniss here, in The Hunger Games!” I did not know who they were talking about until I just recently read the THG series. Then I thought, OMG! My girl is Katness!

And to top it off, I wrote my book before The Hunger Games came out, but mine was not published before hers. My gal IS native American, though. And I’m proud that the female side of me came out with an Indian teenage girl who takes the lead in a portal fantasy thriller. Rarely, if ever, do you see teenage, female North American Indians in a book, especially in the lead role. Talk about POC (people of color), well, I thought I’d give it to them in spades.

May we get a sneak peek into your next WIP?

The third and last book in the Screamcatcher series (The Shimmering Eye) is modeled after the true story of the most haunted property in the United States–Skinwalker Ranch. I devised my own version of the paranormal activity out there, and even contacted George Knapp, an investigative reporter out of Las Vegas, and host of Coast to Coast radio. I asked his permission to write my own fictional account of such a place, without busting his copyright or anything else. He is the documentary narrator and book author of The Hunt for the Skinwalker. George gave me the thumbs up and wished me well. So I tossed my teenage Badlands Paranormal Society into the ranch and brought hell and damnation down on them. The third book in the Screamcatcher series will be out sometime this summer.

Thank you so much for answering the questions. Can’t wait to see more of your work soon!

More places where you can find Chris Stevenson:

Amazon Page:  https://www.amazon.com/Chris-Harold-Stevenson/e/B001K8UUBK

Christy’s Website:  https://christysyoungadultfabuliers.com/

Blog:  http://guerrillawarfareforwriters.blogspot.com/