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xansmenagerie · 1 year

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Find the Vibe

Ah jeez, my notifications apparently just bundled everything for the last week and only told me about this when I was too sleepy last night to do anything about it XD Thank you for the tag, @ambiguouspuzuma

My vibe to find is something close or akin to "I get that all the time" - I had to think fairly hard as I only have one major WIP at the moment and while at least one of the Darcys will be getting that vibe later in the book we're not there yet.

And then I remembered Trent, one of the background characters who exists mostly to be Trent at appropriate moments...

From SYJKR:

The inside of the train carriage was pure chaos. Teenagers of all ages filled every seat, and maybe only a tenth of them were actually sitting in them as designed; although no one was rude enough to have shoes on the upholstery it looked like a good many had simply discarded their shoes to get around this. Before she could start looking for an empty spot of her own, however, Darcy was stopped short by a brick wall of a human being who nevertheless had Head Boy written all over him. Literally, once she spotted the badge. "First year? Need a hand? I can put your bags up, no probs!" On one hand, Darcy had had poor experiences before with boys like him - blond, pale, in a position of power - and she tensed automatically. On the other, his tone was unexpectedly high-pitched and perky for someone his size; Darcy found herself irresistibly put in mind of a large, friendly, Golden Retriever that wasn't entirely sure if she wanted to play. The two warring thoughts stopped her from responding straight away. "Trent! Give them a chance to breathe! And stop looming!" Against all ergonomic sense the new speaker was lounging belly down on the nearest seat, propped up on her elbows, feet up against the wall. Darcy received a wide and toothy grin under the darkest eyes Darcy had ever seen as Trent bashfully backed off a bit. "Don't mind him, he's got no manners but he's a big old softy really," the girl continued, not helping with Darcy's mental images. She expected Trent to kick up a fuss but he just gave her a sheepish grin and shrug that said "It's true" louder than words ever could. Trying not to laugh, tension released, Darcy said, "Sure, I could use a hand." Trent instantly perked up again. "Right! Anything that goes on this rack will get taken in for you at the other end, so make sure you have anything you want for the train ride on you." Given it was the first rack by the door Darcy couldn't see how Trent could think there would be room for another bag on it, never mind her duffel, but she dutifully handed it and the smaller bags attached over while working on getting out of her rucksack. Somehow he found a space to squeeze them into - and her rucksack after Darcy extracted the day sack from the top of it - although she somehow missed seeing him do it, and couldn't spot them amongst the old-fashioned wooden trunks lined up on the rack.

For the next poster, I give you the vibe of "Go on, make me."

Anyone who wants to, feel free to join in - tagging @pure-solomon, @sender-paulson, @sarah-sandwich-writes and @faeveries as fellow Writeblr Discord members if you have time/spoons/inclination :)

#writeblr #writblr #tag game #syjkr

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xansmenagerie · 3 months

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SYJKR: Chapter 1

See previous comment about sensitivity editing - I am pretty damn white, one of the protagonists very much isn't, and while I'm trying to do my research I'm expecting to get things wrong in draft. Reblogs are off, please be kind in comments.

Darcy Symonds crept down the stairs barefoot, running shoes in one hand, socks in the other. She'd learnt two lessons a long time ago; firstly that her father was a light enough sleeper that he would hear her if she walked around in shoes upstairs, leading to lectures, and secondly that socks on the slippery wood of the stairs in the half light of an early autumn morning was just asking for pain. As it was, the chill of the floor as she padded her way quietly around to the back door was yet one more reminder of the end of summer, and the imminent 'fun' of the new school year. Which school, she didn't know - she knew she wasn't welcome back at her old school, but in all honesty she wasn't going to miss much of it, and her dad hadn't discussed the new one with her at all. It would be a boarding school again, and hopefully it wouldn't be quite so...sure of itself as the last one.

Safely through the kitchen door, Darcy could relax a little; shutting the back door in any way that could be called heavy was still a big no-no, but smaller sounds would be okay. It was funny, when she thought about it; her father could sleep like a baby when out on an oil rig despite all the noise, but the quiet of the British countryside left him on edge even after a month off. Maybe the lack of sound was the problem. Moving to somewhere louder was out of the question, for all that neither of them ever saw that much of the house - too many memories.

She shook herself. "Come on Dar," she whispered, "It's not time for autumn maudlins just yet." Resolutely she put on her socks and shoes, checked her bandana one last time to make sure her braids wouldn't escape and let herself out back.

It was one of those rare mornings where the sky shared the blue of a robin's egg and seemed to go on forever. Darcy grinned to herself in anticipation, turned on her music, and started to run.

---

Darcy Symonds woke up ingloriously - face down in a slightly damp pillow, blanket draped vaguely over at least some of his body, and with his mum shouting at him from downstairs.

"Darcy Everet Symonds, if you don't get out of bed and get down here right this second your breakfast is going in Smokey! I don't care that it's the holidays, I mean it!" Darcy groaned and rolled over, dragging the blanket with him, and considered disobeying. Apparently he considered it slightly too long; there was a warning thumpa-thump noise that got louder, the click of his bedroom doorknob being turned. Before he could even sit up the beast charged through the door and was upon him, claws, slobber and all.

"Dammit Smokey!" he yelled, trying to make sure that none of those claws ended up anywhere too sensitive. The giggle coming from the doorway made it doubly clear who was responsible for this indignity - his little sib Robin took after their mama and that included both being a morning person and having an evil sense of humour. Darcy gave up trying to safely remove Smokey from his bed and settled for giving him a really good scritch behind his jaw, one of the few places where the drake's scales were thin enough for it to work. Smokey leaned into the scritch, making grumble-rumble noises of approval deep in his skinny chest, and only held Darcy captive for another minute or so before slinking down onto the floor.

The moment he was free Darcy rolled off the bed, grabbed his dressing gown and pelted for the door. Even if Smokey was upstairs that was no guarantee that Mum's threats wouldn't be made good, and now he was awake Darcy was hungry.

---

On the long home stretch down the hill, Darcy reflected to herself that this was very much the other reason why they would never move house. There weren't all that many places in Britain that a twelve year old could safely go for a long run without a responsible adult, after all, especially one who didn't fit in with the local colour scheme. It both helped and hindered that in the village she was pretty instantly recognisable. On the one hand, being "poor Margaret's daughter, isn't it terrible what happened" gave her a certain amount of protection from the tabloid readers and the like. The village had had eight years of getting used to the idea of "one of theirs" having a black daughter before the accident, and as her dad had kept being so very respectable they were willing to overlook this one foible in this newer "one of theirs" within reason and would probably step in if anything happened. On the other...well. The tabloid readers still existed, just were a bit quieter about their views, and she knew far too well what route to take to avoid upsetting anyone by existing. It could be a lot worse, but there were times she envied the freedom of some of the other kids her age to get up to mischief without any significant consequences.

There was a postman walking up to the front gate just as she arrived. That wasn't unusual in and of itself; what was notable was that it wasn't Mr Collins, and the only time it wasn't Mr Collins was when he was on his two week holiday just after Christmas. Darcy eyed up the unfamiliar postman cautiously, just in case he was secretly some sort of weirdo who only pretended to be a postman to get close to his victims and she was going to need a second wind.

"Ms Symonds?"

Grudgingly dropping the serial killer theory - although he could be a really well-prepared serial killer - Darcy nodded. The postman reached into his satchel and pulled out a large cream envelope, the address printed very formally under a curly crest.

"While this is for your father, I shall entrust it to your safekeeping." He proffered the envelope with a touch of a bow. "Special delivery."

Darcy had never had childhood dreams of being a princess, and yet there was something in the bow that hit all the right buttons to fluster her. She took the envelope, stammered a thank you, and fled around the back of the house. By the time she was inside there was just time to spot the postman through the window as he crested the hill and disappeared out of view.

The envelope was not addressed to her personally, but it was fairly clear to Darcy what it was about. She felt that it was only fair to her father to save them both some time and opened it, pulling out a fat sheaf of papers and a train ticket. It was, as she'd expected, the start of term information for the latest boarding school. Being met at the station, uniforms to be provided on arrival - oh joy, one of those schools - all necessary equipment to be provided, pets only with special permission...

She sighed, put the paperwork down on the kitchen table where her father would see it, dropped the envelope in the recycling bin, and headed upstairs to shower and change before breakfast.

---

Mum was not best pleased at Darcy being so dishevelled so late in the day, for all that she was no more of a morning person than he was. Darcy largely ignored the lecture while tucking into a pile of pancakes; it wasn't the first time he'd heard it, it really wouldn't be the last, and no one in the house (Mum included) took it seriously any more.

"Leave off him, love," Mama said as she bustled through mid-lecture, "The only thing that'll change our boy is the love of a good person, like you did for me." Mum retaliated, as so often was the case, with a floury handprint as Mama walked past. Darcy continued to concentrate firmly on his pancakes. While he loved both his mothers with the secret fierceness of adolescence they could be so utterly embarrassing, even in the privacy of their own home.

There was a well-timed knock on the door. Darcy abandoned pancakes with a quick "I'll get it!" - one pancake was snagged en route as a necessity. Smokey was already at the door when he arrived, scratching and whining, but batter-based bribery always worked. With the drake happily munching away Darcy risked cracking the front door open; the postman standing outside looked mildly perturbed at the noises coming from the hallway

"Mr Symonds?" Darcy nodded, distracted by keeping Smokey out of line of sight of a stranger. The postman handed over a chunky and slightly battered envelope, keeping as far away from the door as possible without being too obvious about it. "You should be careful, you know - there are around fifty dog attacks on postal workers every week."

Darcy smiled politely in response even as he resorted to gently shoving Smokey sideways with one foot. The postman harumphed (but only in a very professional way), turned, and walked back down the path. Darcy shut the door and headed back to the kitchen with an unrepentant drake hot on his heels. The envelope was neatly snatched from his hand by Mama as he entered the kitchen.

"Ooh, is that what I think it is? School paperwork?" As was unfortunately tradition, she neatly opened the envelope on his behalf despite his half-hearted protests, pulling out a sheaf of papers and a train ticket. Her brow wrinkled. "St Digby's? That doesn't sound right?"

From over by the hob Mum laughed. "It sounds close enough, love - they've probably had to rename and relocate again because of some busy-body with a drone or one of the students getting cocky with spells. You remember how many times it happened while we were there? It wasn't so bad when it changed between years, but that time it moved mid-term…?"

Mama rolled her eyes. "Morgana's teeth, how could I forget that one? With my parents coming to visit the next day and them ending up standing in an empty field in Dorset trying to work out what had gone wrong?" She replaced the letter and ticket in the envelope and handed it all back to Darcy. "Don't you lose any of that, trouble," she warned, ruffling his hair with her free hand.

As his mothers discussed travel plans and continued to reminisce about their school days over his head, Darcy finished his breakfast with a wry smile. Yes, he loved his mothers, but...right now, at least, five years of only seeing them in the holidays had a certain appeal...

#syjkr #multichapter #urban fantasy

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xansmenagerie · 6 months

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SYJKR: Prologue

I had told myself I wasn't going to post much SYJKR here as I might like to publish if I ever finish it; that said, given how much I enjoyed of T. Kingfisher's work back when she was posting large chunks on LJ, it might be a tad hypocritical.

So. Reblogs are turned off, everything else is going under a Read More, and if you do read this bear in mind that this is very much the unedited first draft and I am going to be getting So Many sensitivity reads done if there's a chance it's going to a publisher...

A sorting office is far more alive than it has any right to be; the constant movement of letters and parcels dragging all the potential of futures along with them, the busy machines clicking and whirring away, the human staff doing their best to keep up even with addresses like "That Bloke On The Cookery Show, England".

Even in that rare quiet spot between the last of the day's local post being sorted and the bags arriving from all over for the morning delivery the machines still tick away, humming to themselves, and it's into this murmuring gloom that a small figure cautiously makes their way. It's not comfortable, being around all of this technology, but it could be a lot worse; so much now is plastic and aluminium that the small amounts of iron and steel left register no more than an itch.

But it has a job to do, and given the Whoms that have Commanded it it's going to get it done.

For one who in the not so distant past would have been responsible for swapping babies in cradles, the idea of swapping letters in envelopes is no great challenge. Finding the letters in the first place is a different matter - babies after all tend to be big, squally, and not generally found in large batches - and it wastes no small amount of time until it finally works out the system of bins and slots and the strange codes that govern them. A tiny touch of magic to bring the right envelopes to the surface, another to open the seals-

"Ahem."

The pixie freezes. By Summer and Winter both there is absolutely no way anyone could have entered the sorting office without it noticing and yet there is someone standing in the corner, dressed in the uniform of the messengers.

"You do understand," the newcomer says slowly and deliberately, "that tampering with the post is a crime against the Crown itself?"

"Not a crime!" squeaks the hapless pixie. "A Command, a Command by the Crowns and Horns themselves!"

It takes some time and no small amount of patience on the postman's behalf to establish that they are talking about two very different Crowns. "Do you know why the…Crowns and Horns are interested in playing a postal prank on-" He glances back over the two envelopes. "-the Symonds families?"

"No, no, but no prank." For such a small creature the pixie manages a very emphatic smacking together of hand and fist. "Important, this is. Needed. Don't know why, but Crowns and Horns said so."

With an expression warring between extreme reluctance and acute distaste the postman extracts both letters and reads them carefully. One eyebrow slowly raises.

"I see. And this is important to their Majesties, you say?" The pixie nods vigorously, almost bouncing off the worktable it's perched on. The postman hrms, low and contemplative, then deliberately swaps letters and envelopes and holds them out to the pixie to be resealed. Rather than putting them back in the slots, however, he adds them to his satchel.

Before the pixie can protest the postman holds up a hand. "Given their Majesties are involved, I would rather deliver these myself than risk either letter getting lost in the post. Do give them my regards when you report back, won't you?" The pixie nods, beaming at a job not only done well but potentially Better; the postman steps back into the shadows, and once again the pixie is alone in the sorting room - and then it too vanishes, nipping between the sparkles cast by the first light of dawn in the dusty air.

#syjkr #multichapter #urban fantasy

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xansmenagerie · 2 years

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I'm very slowly working on a magical-school novel in the background for a whole bunch of reasons (including spite and indulging people I like in equal parts) - this is one of the first scenes I wrote, and I'm nearly at the point where I can insert it back into the main text...

Darcy had never considered herself a horsey person. She’d met horsey people at previous schools; it was fair to say they were no worse than a lot of the other students, but there was definitely something extra about them. It was possibly a question of money, given that from what she understood of the whole business was that you couldn’t have a horse on the cheap, and it came with a whole new language that she had no patience to learn.

All this being said, the horse now standing invitingly in front of her on the edge of the lake was…beautiful. Not the dream of a horse, but a very real and very solid being that came as close to an ideal as she could imagine. What she couldn’t imagine though was why a horse would be here, now - it wasn’t like there were stables attached to the school, and while Darcy still didn’t know quite where the school physically was it seemed unlikely that this one was wild.

It was hard to think of the strangeness while looking into the horse’s eye though; the depths seemed to draw her in, and she slowly, carefully, stepped forward with one hand reached out. The horse clearly decided that she was taking too long and moved to meet her, shoving its nose under her hand. Something in the back of Darcy’s mind pointed out that it’s coat should have been warm and dry, not cool and slightly damp, but the thought was filed away for later consideration as the horse nuzzled her shoulder then tossed its head.

“Oh, you pretty darling,” she murmured, watching its ears twitch to pick up her voice. “Where have you come from, then?”

“Strathclyde,” said Bronwyn with uncharacteristic grumpiness behind her. Darcy jumped; the horse merely seemed to roll its eyes. “And he should know better than…Angus, get yourself back on two feet this minute.”

The horse made a very rude and not exactly horselike sound.

“I mean it.” Bronwyn strode over, grabbed the horse’s forelock and pulled down hard. The noise it made this time was definitely a yelp. “Don’t think I don’t see you planning to play tricks on a new student, and don’t think I don’t know you’re still in trouble for last year’s pranks.”

There was what Darcy could only describe as a complicated moment. The horse seemed to dissolve into grey mist with eyes, only to reform into a young man in, at a guess, his late teens - still with a chunk of hair firmly trapped in Bronwyn’s fist. Darcy stepped back a pace, putting Bronwyn firmly between her and the newcomer.

“Alright, alright, you’ve made your point!” Angus sounded amused, even standing as he was with his head drawn down by Bronwyn’s grip. “I’ll not do any mischief now, so will you lay off then?”

Bronwyn, perhaps a little reluctantly, let go. “Darcy,” she said over her shoulder, “I’d like you meet Angus. He’s…staff, sort of, in that he looks after the lake and surroundings and makes sure nothing worse than him moves in. Angus, this is Darcy Symonds, she’s one of the students I’m looking after this year.”

Darcy couldn’t help but notice that Angus wasn’t wearing shoes and that the hems of his trouser legs were dripping, even though the rest of him looked dry enough. His eyes hadn’t changed all that much, surprisingly, still deep and dark as the lake waters… Only now she started to feel the indignation rising, now her thoughts weren’t being clouded up by whatever that was. “I know it’s not polite to ask,” she asked anyway through lightly gritted teeth, “but what are you and what were you just trying to do?”

Angus threw back his head and laughed, and for once comparing it to a horse braying would have been accurate rather than slander. “Ah Bron, I like this one, you can keep her!” he said heartily to Bronwyn (clearly trying and failing to maintain a scowl) before turning his attention fully back onto Darcy.

“I’m a kelpie, you know? Demon horse, river horse, whatever you want to call it - and I was just trying to persuade a lass to take a little ride.” Something significant must have made it through into Darcy’s expression as he swiftly added, waving his hands for emphasis, “Nothing like that - an actual horseback ride, with maybe a few bits of mayhem to liven it up.”

Bronwyn piped up, “And by that he means try to make you think he was going to drown you like a really feral kelpie would, or else run you through some low-hanging trees, because he’s an idiot who keeps doing that to people even though he knows how much trouble he gets into when he does.”

“It keeps life interesting,” Angus shrugged, “There’s not that much that tries to get into the lake, and after a couple of centuries you have to make your own entertainment.”

“Hold on - centuries?” Darcy looked at him in shock.

“What can I say, I age well,” Angus smiled back.

#syjkr #angus is entirely laurasimonsdaughter's fault #so's bronwyn a little tbf #writeblr #writblr

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xansmenagerie · 6 months

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OC Incorrect Quote Tag

Not gonna lie, the long silence has been down to a horrible case of winter blues, so thank you @laurasimonsdaughter for giving me something to start kicking my brain into gear again.

@ambiguouspuzuma, if you want the tag game it's yours :)

I'm going to include some of my various RP characters in this because a) why the heck not and b) it's not like I haven't written ridiculous amounts of backplot and sidestory for them anyway. Heck, Harlequin has an entire novella...

Okay, let's start with SYJKR...where, because I'm a masochist and because Shakespearean identity comedy is fun, both main characters have the same name. I'm using the notation that my alpha readers have decided on to tell them apart.

m!Darcy: I hate to say ‘I told you so’— f!Darcy: No, you don’t. You would marry 'I told you so’ and have a baby with it and buy adjoining burial plots.

That is, by the point in the story that Darcy and Darcy finally meet, not a bad match for how they'll be interacting with each other.

Bronwyn: Darcy, what did you just do!? f!Darcy: I took your advice. I stopped running from the problem and I tackled it head on. Bronwyn: I meant try emotional honesty, not murder!!

Not sure Darcy would ever stoop to murder, but over-enthusiastically following Bronwyn's advice? Yep!

Jodie: I have feelings for you. m!Darcy: Why? What's wrong with you? Are you sure you're okay?

*cackles* Yeah...he's a doofus, and I like him that way.

Then we move onto Monster of the Week:

Mel: Look, Colin, it's the third time this week you had a mental breakdown and it's Monday.

No comment :D

Mel: You're ignoring all your problems. Colin: I know. Mel: You also know it's an unhealthy coping mechanism? Colin: I'm ignoring that fact as well. Mel:

Even bigger no comment :D

So RanVeer from the Mistborn campaign, they're a bit more sensible, right?

RanVeer: I hate how you're just born out of nowhere, and you're forced to go to school and get education so you can get a job. What if I wanted to be a duck? No one ever asked me if I want to be a duck!

Given what kandra are and what they do (shapeshifters and spy on people respectively), and given that RanVeer's list of animals they have been on the job has only been restricted by body mass...yeah.

Let's see...the surveyor and Gull the dryad?

Surveyor: Wake up! The sun is shining! Gull: What do you want me to do, photosynthesis?

Possibly funnier the other way around, but yes.

That's probably enough for now - if you want more writing though, please feel free to help by dropping a prompt or a request in the ask box :)

#tag game #incorrect quotes

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