#setnet writes

[setnet]

at long last I have posted the fourth and final chapter of my asoiaf fic old timber to new fires

[bedlamsbard]

re the what fic would you write if you had the energy post, I would LOVE to see you revisit Narnia some day

I think about it sometimes! It's probably unlikely (though never impossible) that I'll ever write another novel-length fic there, but I did a ficbit a few years ago after almost ten years away so...it's very possible!

[grassangel]

Best book you've read so far this year? Favorite queer fiction book(s). Where/how do YOU find books to read?

It's been slim pickings so far. Best in terms of kicking my heels up and giggling is Demon Daughter by Lois McMaster Bujold. In terms of good writing or literary merit, Sin Eater by Megan Campisi, Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White and The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw. But those three were all a bit (or lot) bleak, even if well written/executed, so I'd be hard pressed to say any is the best on both fronts.

Favourite because it was formative: Doctrine of Labyrinths series by Sarah Monette. Favourite because of the smut: Wicked Beauty by Katee Robert. Favourite that isn't so much queer fiction, but just has queer characters: All Systems Red by Martha Wells.

I follow a bunch of authors I enjoy and small publishers on Twitter/Bluesky, mostly scifi and fantasy, with a couple of romance authors in there as well. And basically when they retweet about a book/a list their book is on, I'll check those books out and if they seem interesting, I'll add it on my Goodreads TBR. I'll also scroll through the recently added audiobook filter on Libby for my libraries, as well as looking over the free/cheap books in Kobo/Bookbub emails. Also subscribed to a bunch of self published romance/fantasy authors, but that's generally for only free books and will drop them if they only publish through Amazon/KU. (Am I missing out on some amazing sounding monsterf—king books by not buying on Amazon? Absolutely. But I have more than enough only getting freebies through Kobo/Google Play.)

There is also recs from friends of course, eg @zahnie, @setnet, @calico-arctique, and sometimes I'll just crawl through the Goodreads 'readers also liked' pages, or lists and bookshelves that I have a hankering for.

Which is why my Goodreads TBR is 1.7k long, my Libby TBR tag is 500+ titles long and my Kobo shelf has 500+ books in it. And what is on one list may not necessarily be on the others.

[setnet]

and here is the fic I wrote for yuletide x

[setnet]

One day I will finish old timber to new fires. A snippet of today's work for accountability reasons:

The widow of Barrowton was of an age—had been of an age—with Sansa’s father; not yet forty, though the grim set to her face made her seem older. She had ruled in Barrowton since her husband’s death, and in the long peace of King Robert’s reign, when Lord Eddard ruled in Winterfell, none had dared displace her, nor seize the lands she held in trust. Lady Hornwood had not been so lucky in her widowhood. I could learn from this woman, were it not for the grudge she bears my family.

I have about half the final chapter written. The trouble is that the story has always had two parts to it: the political on one hand and the old gods and hauntings on the other. I'm reasonably happy with the conclusion to the political side but I'm worried I won't stick the landing on the ghost story and its honestly kinda paralysing.

[setnet]

friends, comma, I have yuletided

[setnet]

had a thought: what if i made little citation notes about all the inspirations behind my fullmetal alchemist historiography fic? that would be cool

joke's on me, I started writing this fic nine and a half years ago (which, yikes), i don't remember what I was thinking more than half the time

otoh I went and reread my masters dissertation for the first time in three or four years and it kinda holds up?

[setnet]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Tempest - Shakespeare Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ariel & Prospero (The Tempest) Characters: Ariel (The Tempest), Prospero (The Tempest) Additional Tags: Blank Verse Summary:

Prospero, newly dispossessed of Milan and wreck'd upon the island, finds Ariel trapped within a cloven pine and offers him freedom.

[setnet]

How am I just finding out you wrote old timbers to new fires???? One of my fav Jonsa fics???? And we’ve been mutuals on tumblr all this time???? I’m AGHAST at my own ignorance

Yeah that's me. I was brainstorming it in the jonsa book club discord back in the day but that was like 4 years ago. It's taking me so long to finish 😭

[grassangel]

Tagged by @setnet to do last book, current book, next book.

Last book: Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo (print), and The Golden Enclaves (audiobook) by Naomi Novik.

Both were excellent - I like The Singing Hills cycle for the way it approaches stories, it's very Pratchettian that way; and I have Thoughts about The Golden Enclaves that might need more time, another listen or some fic for me to articulate properly.

Current book: Red Rising (audiobook) by Pierce Brown and Husband Material (audiobook) by Alexis Hall

Husband Material is popcorn reading, something light with disaster gays who need to communicate their feelings a little bit more (though they are learning). Red Rising? I don't know why this series is so popular, popular enough to get a board game based on it. It's very much baby's first Ancient Rome inspired dystopian sci-fi, and there are better YA options in that micro-genre published in the last decade.

Next book: Into the Riverlands (audiobook) by Nghi Vo, Cruel Seduction (audiobook) by Katee Robert, Pulling the Wings off Angels (print) by KJ Parker, and Some Desperate Glory (print) by Emily Tesh

The print ones I may or may not get through before they are returned to the library, but I live in hope. The Emily Tesh is firmly in my need to read, because there is non-monogamy (apparently), plus some funky stuff with reproduction/pregnancy. The KJ Parker is a reluctant one, because I dislike how he writes, but the angel/demon books are basically Good Omens fic with extra theology.

And yes, I am rereading Into the Riverlands already. I had it my holds for ages, so might as well reread it in audio. (Also I wanna see how the character voices are done.) I'm not particularly looking forward to this installment of the Dark Olympus series, but reading mainstream erotic romance is market research for when I write PWP (in a sort of what not to do half the time).

I would like to hear from @nostalgia-tblr, @zahnie and idk, @farragoofwires are reading. (But no obligation, and if you are not mentioned but still would like to fill this out, please tag me as having tagged you so I can be nosy!)

[setnet]

WIP WORD SEARCH GAME

tagged by @silentstep who gave me the words:

teeth | agitate | seldom | gold | agree

teeth - from 'River Roads', original

The space under the tree was broader than the hall of mirrors at the Ironwood Hotel, and it had the hushed, echoing quality of church. The bloody fringes of the tree’s aerial roots hung like buttresses and arches, and between them, its branches were bound with strips of finger-weaving. The oldest bindings were frayed, greying things, and where the tree had grown around them the branches were puckered like scars.

Finger-weaving was an old craft, less common now that factory linen and Khasanian cotton were so cheap. Robin had never had the patience for finger-weaving, but Sedge had always enjoyed the steady rhythm, the way each twist of thread built upon the last. As a child she had learned dozens of patterns, dragon’s teeth, star-seeds, the home fires and more; and when her blood came Granny Iris and Ouzel had begun to teach her the Grey River patterns, which were only woven by women of that kin.

The bands wound around the tree were odd. The familiar patterns were there, but they had jagged edges where the patterns no longer held, twisted into something less geometric and more…alive. Sedge leaned closer. Here were the home fires, but as they burned the rising smoke and falling ash curved and spread into an open ribcage. Here the net of flowers, but as she followed the pattern the net gaped and twisted into open mouths, singing. No. Screaming.

agitate - from FMA histories fic, working title 'The Unmasterable Past'

The disaffection in Ishval, to which reference was made in our columns some time ago, has reached its climax. About the fifth of August, a faction of some two hundred Ishvalan Home Rule agitators stormed the District Court buildings in Hansa intending to slaughter the men they found inside.

As the attackers were bravely seen off with grapeshot and cartridge, some dozen or so died. We now hear that in revenge the insurgents have slaughtered the garrison of Hansa, murdered and disgraced innocent soldiers’ wives and fired the city. ‘On all sides,’ our correspondent wrote, ‘great pinnacles of weaving fire shot up to heaven. The pillars of smoke rose sullenly into the sultry summer evening, and the roar of the conflagration mingled in the street with the shouts and riot of the insurgents. A great many Ishvalan homes and businesses burned. It is a sickness of the mind to destroy one’s brother’s home with one’s enemies, but the hot-heads are implacable and their hatred for lawful Ishvalans is as strong as their discontent with Amestrian authority.’

It is a disgraceful business, the result, no doubt, of Aerugan influence within the irreconcilable section of Ishvalan Home Rule agitators. In 1857 the mutiny in Pendleton Narrows was met promptly and decisively with grapeshot and canister fire, and crushed. In 1901 insurrection was met with delay, vacillation and insufficient punishment, and the consequence is that the mutiny has spread across all Ishval. The Government admittedly has a difficult and delicate position to face, but it is clear they cannot give in to the insurgents. The traitors must be made an example of and insurrection punished.

‘The Hansa Insurrection,’ Dublith Guardian, 3 September 1901

seldom - FMA

Mustang’s parents died when he was young and he was raised by his paternal aunt. Chris Mustang, known as ‘Madame Christmas’, was the owner and operator of the Christmas bar in downtown Central, an institution that, although not precisely a brothel, was known to facilitate so-called ‘gentlemen’s arrangements’. Chris Mustang was publican, patron and enforcer of the establishment. She had a well-earned reputation and an information broker - she had begun by accumulating information as insurance against the mistreatment of her ‘girls’, and against military or police interference into her business. Although disdaining blackmail and extortion as wasteful, by 1900 she was able to exert subtle influence on high-ranking military and civilian officials.

There is evidence to suggest that Mustang’s placement as a student of Berthold Hawkeye and later as the protégé of General Grumman were the result of Madam Christmas’s connections. Mustang also made use of his foster mother’s information network, setting her on the track of information he dared not pursue through official channels. However, Mustang’s ambition caused him to downplay his background. He seldom spoke of his family publicly, no doubt wishing to avoid the accusation that his unusually fast progression through the ranks was the result of, as one wag put it, his foster mother’s grip on High Command’s collective balls.

Friedmann. Mustang. Vol.2 1910-1937: The Hero of Ishval (Barnhelm Books, 1995)

gold - upcoming chapter of old timber to new fires, ASOIAF

In torchlight the blood had been black, but the rising sun revealed it deep red against the snow. Sansa breathed out softly, trying to still the tremors in her belly. Her father’s legs had spasmed just so, when Ser Ilyn cut off his head in King’s Landing. Her father’s head had fallen just so, rolling down from the High Septon’s pulpit, down the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor to the cobbled square below. The crowd had roared, screamed and surged. A man had lunged for her father’s head, raising it by the hair, then dropped it, doubling over, when one of the goldcloaks put a mailed fist into the man’s belly.

This was not the sodden heat of summer in King’s Landing. The air was hard and cold, the blood already frozen. The crowd in Winterfell’s court murmured, their voices low. She could not tell if it was approval or censure. Blood dripped from the dark metal in Jon’s hand. His face very still. So he had looked when she had found him at the wall, distant as the Stranger.

agree - FMA

Mother’s letters from the war years are written on good stationary, worn, stained, folded and refolded. Father’s are written on a mismatch of sheets. At times, when he could not find paper, his words were written on the back and margins of mother’s letters, or crossing the lines of her words so that their words mingled and overlapped. At other points, he wrote to her on the backs of pages torn from books: A lithographic print of an Ishvalan temple, a handful of anatomical drawings from a medical text, the title page of a collection of Cretan poetry. As an officer, he had a partial dispensation from the official censor, and as the war progressed he made increasing use of it. His words never quite reached a pitch that might be interpreted as treasonous, but his unease grew increasingly apparent.

12 March 1908. Your letters are a solace and a comfort to me, my dear. I carry them in my front pocket and read them daily. Roy teases me for it, but I know that he is only jealous, for he has no sweetheart at home to write to. I have met him here in Kanda, for the military alchemists have been sent to the frontline en masse for the first time in our history. It is a frightening thing to see them at work, for they are as terrible as massed artillery and far more mobile. Living weapons, they are called, and I cannot disagree... ‘My Father’s War,’ Elycia Hughes, My Father's War and Other Essays. (Central: Stodhardt Publishing, 1953)

tagging @branwendaughterofllyr @yeahnahmateypotatey @nezumiko @funnydivine @grassangel with the words and variants:

river | help | often | shimmer | interests

[setnet]

I was tagged by @silentstep to share the last few sentences I wrote (thank you!). I then realised I hadn’t written anything for fun since about May, so it was a good reminder. Some words from chapter five:

Up the Caeleth, in a dim, green curve of river with deep hollows and overhanging banks, was the home of an eel. The old female had made her home in that curve of the river not long after the compound had been built at Watersmeet. Sedge fed her bird meat, cut raw from the bones, a prayer of sorts to the divinity of all eels. Grant me safe passage. Let me be silent, hidden, let me slide through the hands of those who hunt me. As the glass eels climb the rapids and falls to the feet of the mountains, let me journey to Grey River, to my father’s people; let me climb the weeping water to their side.

[setnet]

First Line Tag Game

Tagged by @silentstep thank you! Post the first lines of any WIP you may have (and interpret “first lines” any way you like), and then tag some people…

I am feeling generous, so you get six:

River Roads |original

When Sedge was four, she fell into the river and almost died.

Vae victis | original

After the hostilities were ended and the treaties signed, the elders of the cities exchanged hostages to prevent their renewal. Because such is the way of things, vae victis, three thousand youths were sent forth from the gates of the vanquished city: three thousand young men and women of patrician and artisan families to be held captive against their parents’ rage.

Guarantor | young wizards

The memories return to him in the drifting quiet before sleep and mingle with his dreams, so that he wakes in the pale light before Thahit’s dawn, hollow with loss, the dust of a thousand moons in his mouth.

old timber to new fires chapter 2 | asoiaf

The dead man stood atop the Wall and watched the haunted forest. 

Almost | original

Sojourner was boiling salt when the singer came.

The unmasterable past | fullmetal alchemist

The sandstorm days will not cease until all our blood has spilled upon the soil. Then the end may come, for the people of Ishval will be murdered; and the lands of our ancestors, upon which they were wont to tread, will become the property of strangers, the habitation of ghosts and demons.

Amat Nazhar, May 1908 Two months before Order 3066

Epigraph, Johann Kochar and Noa Atan, The Sandstorm Days: A new history of the Ishvalan Genocide (Kanda, Ishval, 2009)

Who wants to do this? @branwendaughterofllyr @grassangel @funnydivine @woodswit @nezumiko @wiwaxia

[setnet]

This fic I’m writing hit 20k, so here’s the opening scene:

The beginning of the end for Alayne Stone came at the feast after the first day of the Tourney of Winged Knights.

The tables were heavy laden with roasted capon and hog, turnips and carrots cooked in honey, fresh bread, yellow cheese and white. The wine and ale flowed freely, and the scions of the Vale drank and spoke politics. As they drank their voices grew louder, so that she did not even need to strain to hear them. They spoke of the last harvest, of famine, wolves and outlawry in the Riverlands, the Faith Militant in the Crownlands, ironmen in the Reach, storms on autumn seas and strange ships seen in the Stepstones.

Alayne listened with half her attention, sorting information from rumour, and rumour from boast, until Ser Roland Waynwood, made expansive with drink and emotion, slammed down his cup and exclaimed, “The Starks of Winterfell were ever friends to the Vale! Yet here we sit, in service to the men who designed the Red Wedding—while the Boltons hold Winterfell, and Lord Stark’s daughter’s been wed to the Bastard of the Dreadfort.”

Alayne sat up straight, as if struck. No, she thought, no, that’s not right, Sansa Stark is to wed Harry Hardyng, and Arya is dead. But Ben Coldwater was nodding. “Bad business,” he said. “The men from White Harbour and Ramsgate who come through the Burn tell tales of the bastard that paint him half a monster. What happened to his first wife…”

“What happened to his first wife?”

So Ben Coldwater told the story, as he had heard it from the Ramsgate fishers in the harbour of Coldwater; and behind him, Alayne listened in silence, her mouth gone dry with horror.

“I heard a strange story today, Father,” she said later, as she went over the final plans for the second day of the tourney in Lord Petyr’s study. “I heard that Lord Stark’s daughter has been wed to Lord Bolton’s bastard at Winterfell.”

“Lord Stark’s daughter?” Petyr’s smile was strange. “Why should you care for such tales, Alayne?”

“Mere curiosity.” She said the words calmly, though her belly was in knots. “The elder daughter is missing and wanted for treason, and the younger daughter is dead, so whom did Lord Bolton’s son marry?”

“My clever daughter,” Petyr said. “The Boltons needed a Stark girl to unite the North, so Tywin Lannister gave them one. The Lannisters always pay their debts… but sometimes they pay false coin. The girl is not Lord Stark’s daughter, you have that right.”

Alayne’s head was spinning. If not Arya, then who? Not some southern girl, surely. The lords of the North would have to be fools to be taken in by such a deception. It must needs be northern girl, one who knew Winterfell, who knew the Starks, a girl on whom the Lannisters could lay their hands… a girl who would not be missed.

If not Arya then who—frail memory dropped on her from as if from a great height.

She had returned to her room and Jeyne had been gone.

In the fractured, terrified days after her lord father’s arrest and the massacre of his guards and household, she had been locked in a room in Maegor’s Holdfast with Jeyne Poole, the steward’s daughter. The girl had been distraught, weeping as she whispered of soldiers come, northmen slaughtered; weeping until Sansa longed for quiet and peace. 

Ser Boros Blount had taken her to Queen Cersei, to write letters condemning her father and begging her family to surrender. Cersei Lannister had been seated in the council chambers, in a mourning dress covered in jewels like scarlet tears, attended by the king’s councillors: Grand Maester Pycelle, Lord Varys, and Petyr Baelish. And Sansa had asked… she had asked…

She had asked if Jeyne could see her father.

Cersei hadn’t wanted Jeyne upsetting her, she’d said so. Her voice had been sweet. It was only in memory that Sansa heard the poison. What shall we do with this little friend of hers, my lords?

Littlefinger had said, I’ll find a place for her. Sansa had returned to her room and Jeyne was gone, and Littlefinger had never mentioned her again.

False coin. Lord Petyr was watching her, smiling, inviting her to share his humour, so she laughed, though she felt sick, and shared the other gossip she had learned, and listened to his plans for Lord Royce and Lady Waynwood and Harry the Heir with a smile on her face.

All the while her head was a tumult. Petyr helped her escape King’s Landing. He kept her safe from Cersei Lannister. Perhaps he did not know what had happened to Ramsay Bolton’s first wife, she thought, but the excuse sounded weak even to her. Petyr took such care to know everything. And Littlefinger…

…Littlefinger would sell Jeyne Poole to a monster without blinking. He would do it in cold calculation, with a smile on his face, and laugh about it later. She had thought Littlefinger was a mask Petyr wore, but no matter how she looked, she could see only Littlefinger. When she kissed him goodnight, the mint on his breath tasted like poison. I would leave in a heartbeat, she thought miserably, but I have nowhere to go.

Yet hidden inside her was a secret, a promise: there was one person left to her still. He was half a world away, as distant as the moon and as impossible to reach, but his name gave her the courage to turn back in the doorway, an absent-minded frown painted on her brow. “Father,” she said, “Whatever happened to Jeyne Poole?”

The humour faded from Littlefinger’s smile. “To whom, sweetling?”

She remembered the Vale lordlings and their morbid curiosity. Whatever happened to his first wife?

He locked her in a tower and starved her to death. They found her with her mouth bloody and her fingers chewed to the bone.

“No-one,” she said. “Never mind.”

[setnet]

woke up this morning with the tremendous need to write a mash-up of the Iliad and Joan of Arc with lesbians and a happy ending and now i’m sure what I’m doing with my life

[setnet]

APOCRYPHA: the story of the lady-in-the-road and the wanderer’s heart

The lady-in-the-road, patron of travellers, the lost, the hopeless, had been a long time journeying, searching for a place to make her home. She wandered the earth and saw humans loving, and making love, and she longed for such a feeling for herself. So she made a man to be her lover; and in order that they might be equal, she made him of her own divinity, as knowing and potent as she, and he was splendid and terrible in the morning of the world.

The lady courted the man with many gifts, but he did not love her as she wished to be loved. And she courted him with miracles and splendours, but he did not love her as she wished to be loved. And she courted him with stories and song, and followed him down all the roads of the world, but he did not love her as she wished to be loved. For in making the man the lady had forgotten the nature of her own divinity. She had split herself into her many faces that each face might love an aspect of the world; that she might lavish her regard on each least thing. 

The man she had made had only one face. 

He said to her, Why do you give me these gifts, and make me these miracles? Why do you follow me down all the roads of the world?

The lady said, I wish to be your lover.

He shook his head and said, My lady, you made me to be splendid and terrible, as you are. Because I see all things, I love all things. There is no room in my heart to love one person above all others. You made me a heart so full of wonder that there is no room in it to be content with that.

The lady-in-the-road understood then what she had done, and she smiled in rue and left off her courtship. And the man the goddess had made went down into the world with a heart that did not love or yearn for love, but was sufficient in itself, filled with wonder and delight at the world and all its glory.