#what happened here. oops i wrote i whole snippet

[night-dark-woods]

ooooo i’ve heard you talk about the horsegirl movie wip before but id love to hear more…it compels me so

elsie oh elsie... someone else asked abt it too so theres a snippet here (that i need to clean up and make more voicy a bit i think, now that it has been sitting in my notes app for *checks calendar* almost 6 months oops) but i just want to see elsie treated gently & seen for herself for once in her miserable infinite life, and i think someone as determinedly and bravely optimistic as amanda is the perfect girl for the job.

every part of elsie's relationship with her body is so fascinating to me like. she has a custom frame like no other exo has but she was coerced into that decision and we have NO IDEA if clovis was telling the truth or just told her whatever needed to happen so he could use her as a test run at immortality. she was deeply complicit in all of it until the end and then was killed for that defiance. her mother called her body a walking lazaretto. and i think it adds a whole fun new layer to make her trans as well with clovis's misogyny and alton's jealousy and to add that angle to her feelings on her exo frame is sooo fun. i think she and micah should chat sometime too. and amanda is also trans to me, and has a prosthetic, so i think it will be fun to have elsie spiraling and spiraling about her body and amanda be like yknow you arent the only person who has ever experienced these things. bc i think elsie has felt so alone for so long and while not everyone can relate to her exact experiences in the Torment Nexus (dark future lorebook), no human experience is truly unique and i think elsie has forgotten that (both that she is human and that she might find comfort in and relate to others beyond pure utility in completing the tasks she has set out for herself as penance for being clovis's granddaughter).

i just want her acting touch-starved and weird around someone as open with her affection as amanda is. i think its fun. also last time i wrote elsie i made her mercy-kill mara lol so i need to write her something nice even if im going to poke fun at her a little bit for her skittishness. ive only written the opening part but id like to have elsie start in her usual mode (legacy's oath set) of filtering every one of her emotional responses thru explicit description of her exo body's "version" of biological human responses and then slowly change to just... having her responses without that layer of separation she seems intent on giving herself.

this is all much easier to lay out than actually Write especially in second person where i need to make sure im in her head in the right way to let the reader see what shes not saying, which for me always means rewriting at least twice. which is why its still barely started djdhdhfh.

[kochanski]

Okay here since we're posting fic here's a snippet of an abandoned rimster mpreg/breeding kink/whatever wip But Not The Way You Think (rated E but I just. never wrote the actual sex part oops just the leadup)

"Look at you," Rimmer said, arms crossed, eyes narrow. "Lazing about again, are we? Reading our softcore superhero pornography?"

"So what?" Lister draped the comic book over his face, letting out a sigh harsh enough to flutter the pages. "There's nothing to do, Rimmer, absolutely nothing that needs done. No reason for you to come an' bother me, alright?"

"Sure there is. We need to take inventory of the last of our supplies, for one."

"Did that yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that."

"Oh. Well, the navicomp needs to be recalibrated-"

"Again? We did that five hours ago!"

"Well, if you just keep sitting there like a bump on a log, you'll get pudgier than you already are," Rimmer snapped. "You look like you're carrying another Jim and Bexley."

Again? This was maybe the eighth time Rimmer had mentioned it in half as many days. Something was wrong with him- or, well, something was wronger than normal, Lister supposed.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you need more exercise and less vindaloo."

"No, no." He sat up, carefully folding the comic back underneath his pillow. "You keep bringing it up, right, me being pregnant."

"Wh- so? It was a dramatic thing to happen, Listy, I only helped deliver them."

"The skutters delivered them. You fainted immediately."

"Well, I helped raise them."

"Yeah, okay, you spoiled them. I had to do the actual parenting."

"Oh, poor you. Having to be an adult for a whole week!"

"That's not what this is about, though, is it? You can't have empty nest syndrome, Rimmer, you don't have a parental bone in your body."

"Sure I do." Rimmer actually looked a little hurt. "I took care of our little family, didn't I? At least, as well as a dead person could."

"You told them to stick their hands up the chicken soup machine and see what happened."

"How was I supposed to know they hadn't developed sarcasm yet?" Rimmer crossed his arms. "Anyway, any child of mine would be smart enough not to jam his fist into strange nozzles."

"Any child of yours? Is this what you're on about?" Lister frowned. "You want to be a father?"

"Of course not. It's no fun to be a father, is it? So cold and aloof all the time. If I'm going to deal with the little buggers, I might as well enjoy them."

"Mother, then?" It was a joke- Lister'd meant it as a joke, he had, honest, but Rimmer was eerily silent for a few moments before letting out a forced laugh. Christ, and his dick was starting to throb at the thought of it. Smegging Power Girl and her massive tits. Smegging Rimmer.

"That's ridiculous. I'm dead, and it isn't like Arlene's around to impregnate me, anyway."

"Who needs her?"

"What?"

"Well, you don't want to be the father, I will."

"No," Rimmer laughed. "That would be something, wouldn't it? Holding me down and breeding me like a smegging woman."

"Seriously."

"Seriously what?"

"Seriously, Rimmer, you're either begging for it or you're one of Freud's favorite patients."

"You barely know who Freud is."

"I know enough," lied Lister. "Anyways, I know you, and you're dropping hints like it's laundry day and I've run out of me decent socks."

"If by decent you mean non-crawling."

"So you admit it?"

"No!" He put his hands on his hips, then crossed them in front of his chest, then rubbed his face like it could scrub the red out of his cheeks. "No, Listy, I don't want you to… to…"

"To put a baby in you. Knock you up."

"That's enough."

"Put a bun in that oven."

"It's pointless, Lister, there is no oven. I'm the wrong sex, wrong person, and I'm dead as a doornail. And, lest I have to remind you again, I am not a homosexual." What they'd gotten up to last week disproved that, but Lister wasn't about to bring it up while he was on a roll. Rimmer hadn't stormed off yet, which meant he was desperate.

"Okay, Rimmer, you're not a homo," he quickly agreed. "So we'll just have straight sex."

"What?"

"Be my girlfriend for an hour or two."

"What?"

"You heard me." Lister dug the comic book back out and pretended to read it. Yeah, the only way to get Rimmer to agree to this stuff was to sweeten it up with a thick spoonful of denial. Pretend it was incredibly normal that he'd developed a sudden pregnancy fetish after years in deep space. How long had Rimmer been sitting on that one, actually? Since Deb? Was this a long-standing fantasy of his?

Smeg, Lister was having to pretend it was incredibly normal to be this wet at the thought of Rimmer liking it.

[ebitenpura]

ever since I read Dunmeshi I can't stop thinking about whether or not Ikaynids taste like snow crab...they look very meaty...

Lana makes you forage for supplies and water but wouldn't it be more prudent to learn survival skills and not waste rations in unfamiliar territory? That's probably an important skill the Alliance had to learn as a bunch of guerilla fighters.

In other words, I'm picturing a scene where Eight is examining the giant Ikaynid and all 89 of its babies that attack you in the Zakuul swamps and being like "we should eat these".

Ikaynid Sauté with Wild Swamp Veggies

Ingredients:

Giant Ikaynid

Ikaynid younglings

Filtered swamp water

Herbal swamp grass

Ginx Oil

Zakuulan Glowshrooms

ration seasoning to taste

Koth's unidentified alcohol from a flask ("hey!")

Directions:

Take a sharp vibroknife, preferably an armor-piercing variety and find an unclouded eye of your Giant Ikaynid. Stab down into the edges of the eyeball until you feel the cartilage pop loose. Continue sawing until you remove the hard layer that protects the Ikaynid eyeball: it should be as big as your average wok. Very sturdy! Can be used as rain covers or shields. Set aside once you have 2.

Separate your young Ikaynids by legs, thorax, and head. Remove eyeballs. Split the legs at the joints and crack, folding to remove the meat.

Flip the young Ikaynid thorax onto its back, and split the carapace into two. Pick out the cartilage and drain.

Trim the ends off your herbal swamp grass. Clean thoroughly with filtered swamp water to remove parasites. Chop into even sections with your vibroknife.

Grease your Ikaynid eyelid with Ginx Oil squeezed from the sacs of a fresh ginx. Place it over an open fire with the second eyelid over it as a pot lid. Wait for it to heat.

Wash your Zakuulan Glowshrooms; trim any inedible parts and gently clean off debris. If you've gathered excess, set half of them aside to dry for later usage. Chop into sizeable pieces.

Prepare your Ikaynid meat and sauté in your greased eyelid until it begins to dry. Add alcohol. Cover with the second eyelid and steam for 8-10 minutes over low heat.

Throw your Glowshrooms and swampgrass into the Ikaynid Eyelid pot. Remove your ration seasoning from the package and sprinkle generously. Sauté over medium until the desired moistness is achieved.

Serve to approx. 3-4 people in separate plates or eyelids.

The review:

"I'm not sure how I feel about eating something that tried to eat me a few minutes ago." Koth muttered, poking hesitantly at his dish with his utensils. The Ikaynid meat jiggled slightly at his provocations. Despite the captain's and Lana's open reluctance to eat the swamp predator's freshly cooked young, they had to admit...

Grumble. Lana and Koth glanced down in surprise at the sound reverberating from their stomachs, as if they didn't expect their own bellies to betray them. The mirth in Eight's eyes only glinted brighter in the darkness of their shelter, where he'd already begun sucking and shucking the meat out of boiled Ikaynid legs set aside for himself.

...It smelled good.

Lana glared at Eight, daring her agent to make fun of her as she grabbed an eyelid, scooping a small portion from the steamy makeshift pot into her makeshift plate. Somehow his innocuous chewing and innocent expression served to make her feel even more embarrassed, though one needed to throw away their pride when faced with situations such as these. Stars, how did she go from being Minister of Intelligence to eating spiders in a swamp?

No, if she thought any further down that road, she'd surely fall into greater depths of despair. Lana sat down with a thoroughly vexed expression on the nearest log picked clean of glowshrooms and stabbed the safest looking part of the dish to start with. Feeling eyes on her, she stopped bringing the morsel to her mouth and turned to spy Koth staring at her eagerly, his plate untouched.

She scowled darkly, prompting the captain to quickly look in another direction and begin whistling. So. Even her comrades had turned on her and were waiting for her to take the first poisonous bite. She would not be defeated so easily!

Mustering up her courage and her pride, Lana inhaled and bit the piping-hot section of ikaynid flesh and swampgrass, expecting the worst...

Her aureate eyes flew open. Juicy. A bit firm, like the stonefish she'd had on Manaan, but with its own distinct flavor that differed greatly from the awful smell she'd encountered wafting from its uncooked corpse. And what was this seasoning? Yes, very refined. The swampgrass' stems were hollow like reeds, allowing it to absorb much of the meaty juices and rich, aromatic flavor of the alcohol that combined with the grass' spry herbal flavor to make a sauce that contained sweet and bitter notes that tantalized the tongue.

She stabbed a plush slice of glowshroom, admiring its purple color. The mushroom was quite thick on its own and made a good meat substitute, but in this case, added an earthy undertone to the dish that cleansed the palate.

So lost in having a full meal the first nights since Korriban did she fail to notice the laser-focus her compatriots had gained watching her pick up speed at taking apart her dish; it was only until she'd cleaned it did she look up to increasingly wide grins.

Lana ignored them with a huff. She set down her plate. "It was very good. You would know that if you hadn't let your food grow cold, Koth."

The captain squawked and began digging in voraciously.

Lana set her piercing gaze on Eight, who seemed to be waiting too eagerly for her commentary.

She coughed into her sleeve. "I admit...I was wrong to pass up a meal. It would be a great boon if we could save on rations, wherever we could."

Eight continued to stare at her. Lana felt her professional demeanor slipping away by the second.

"And...I would not be opposed to having more."

Pleased by her reaction, Eight gave her a thumbs up, an Ikaynid leg dangling out of his mouth. Success!

[theundertalenebulartheory]

Alternate Chapter 8 ending

I wrote this with a lot of excitement about my first official Papyrus POV snippet. But then... meh... I was editing later and decided that I kindof wanted to take the chapter in a slightly different direction. So why not put the junk chapter ending over here?

You reached out your hand and tried to touch the surface with a fingertip but passed right through. You tried again, using your whole hand this time, and again nothing happened.

Perfect.

“Oops. Looks like I can’t touch my own magic glowing blue heart-soul. Oh darn. So, who’s next? Hm? Eenie-meenie-miney-Pap. Bro. I’m calling on you. You’re running this magic game, my guy. How about you?”

He swallowed and looked down at you with possibly the most intense expression he’d ever given you. If you thought Blue Magic felt like looking down at Cthulu, hiding at the bottom of the abyss, Papyrus was looking at you as if your skin had suddenly become perfectly transparent. As if he was trying to calculate how many atoms there were in your body and exactly how much force would be needed to convert each one of them into magical energy. He was looking through you. And after a moment of the most intense scrutiny you’d ever experienced in your life, Papyrus flicked his wrist with a flourish and produced a magic bone.

A gift bone, that had three-dimensional substance. This one was long and thin, though, like a conductor’s baton. Like a medical instrument. Papyrus placed one hand on your shoulder, steadying and firm and immensely strong but careful and delicate all the same. With blue magic painted over your soul, you could feel his weight. How powerful he was. How massive his magical presence was. Both of the skeletons, actually. It was like standing almost too close to a black hole. Just how MUCH was contained in their bones. So much more so with Papyrus’ hand on your shoulder, using exactly the correct amount of pressure to make sure you were firmly in place but mindful of just how small… just how delicate and breakable and bruisable you were. An elephant balancing a peach in its trunk.

A titan with a fawn in the palm of its hand.

Using the nubbed end like a delicate spatula, he brought it up to the pointed tip of the heart shape and touched it delicately, gradually putting the smallest amount of pressure on the base of it.

Your eyes grew increasingly wide along with the pressure.

Where your own hand had passed right through, just like the heart had initially passed right through your coat without any issue when it first appeared, without any kind of reaction from it… you could feel this. It WAS a part of you, like your bones and your cardiovascular system and your blood was part of you. A part of a whole, but whole on its own as well. Like being able to feel your heartbeat in your wrists at the same time you could feel it in your chest and your neck.

“… Oh…”

-----------------------------------------------------------

Papyrus pulled in a sharp breath, the lingering residual magic from their encounter just as crisp as the winter air. You didn’t know what you’d asked, and that wasn’t your fault. He didn’t hold it against you. He wouldn’t have, even if you’d realized you mistake and everyone had decided to go back indoors to finish their original activities.

He couldn’t hold it against you once he’d indirectly connected with your soul.

It wasn’t as intense as he knew it could have been. He’d forgotten just how powerful human souls were. It was still a bit of a kick in the teeth, though. Even with the distance he’d made sure to keep between himself and your soul, careful not to be drawn in too close. It was a delicate balance between far enough to ensure no negative repercussions but not so obtusely distant to make it seem as though he was disgusted by the request.

It truly was magnificent. Magnetic.

He just hadn’t calculated for the additional connection that could be generated by his own blue magic wrapped delicately around their purple soul. Well, he never did claim to be good at math. That was Sans’ area.

His blue magic reached out to him, a monster’s magic was really just an extension of their own self after all, and tethered him indirectly to the soul it was wrapped around. He might as well have used his own hands with a cloth draped over them, for all the good this indirect extension had done him. Perhaps that was an exaggeration. It wasn’t quite so intense as direct contact could have been. The picture of a place was never so much as visiting in person. But this livewire he’d grabbed onto was still your essence. Bright and powerful and strong. Resilient.

He should pull away.

After everything you’d been through today, you were holding up remarkably well. For now. You were overwhelmed and frazzled and feeling like you were adrift at sea but still swimming. Everything was just so new. So remarkable. So wonderful. He could feel your wide-eyed wonder so loudly it almost drowned out everything else. Everything was amazing, and you were amazed. Astounded. Single, powerful, clear notes capable of bridging that gap between his own soul and yours. But…

He should pull away.

His hand started to shake with the effort it took to keep from letting go of your shoulder and reaching in with his other hand. He’d been a little hurt at first when he’d heard that you weren’t sure how close of friends Papyrus considered you to be. That there wasn’t such a thing as ‘yes we are friends’ and ‘no we are not friends’ for humans. That it was a gradient. That there were details he was missing.

Again.

That had been the problem for so long, hadn’t it? He WAS missing them. He could see the big picture, the broad strokes and the overall patterns, but so many fine details eluded him. Literally and figuratively. He was no longer capable of focusing on a single tree when there was a whole forest. One sentence on a page when there was a whole novel. It was one thing to know, logically, that all paintings consisted of individual brushstrokes that worked in synchronized harmony but he couldn’t pick out a single violin from an orchestra if his soul depended on it.

Even this indirect touch connected him only to the broad brushstrokes of your person, your perseverance and your selflessness and your insecurity and your love and wonder and care. But the fine details? Impossible. It was like looking at you through fogged glass. Frustrating. Puzzling.

And oh, how Papyrus did like a good puzzle.

He needed to pull away.

It hadn’t even been three seconds of time and already this brilliant mind attached to this brilliant purple-soul had grabbed on to the other end of the sensation of magic being applied directly to your soul, and Papyrus was treated to a front row seat of your analysis of it.

Instantly you started testing. Pushing and pulling and concentrating on its responses. He could see with his eyes that your face pinched, eyes narrowed at the little thing seemingly balancing on the end of his magic. But so much was happening on the unseen world within that he himself closed his own to better experience it.

It was just out of your grasp, though. You weren’t magic, and so the control or even the feel of magic was so unfamiliar that you didn’t even know what you were looking for. Just mashing buttons, as far as you were concerned. Trying to pull from your heart, from the inside of your ribs, from your chest. (How was it possible to feel so much of another person’s anatomy? How was it possible to feel so much of your own reflected?) Trying to push with your mind and your forehead. (He couldn’t see, he couldn’t feel, but he could hear the gears and the electric buzz of activity. It was a beehive in there.) Reaching even with imagination, trying to mentally picture grabbing and holding and lifting and pressing, but nothing was happening. Each time something didn’t work, the results were noted in detail and catalogued and tagged and filed away. He could hear you doing it, through that foggy window. He just couldn’t quite see it. Feel it.

And it had been so long since he’d felt something like that.

“Agh, it’s not working.” Then you started pulling out pairs of trials and trying them together. Reaching with the imagination and pulling with the heart. Pushing with your mind and grabbing with their chest.

Nothing was creating any change in your soul.

Papyrus’ on the other hand…

He gently squeezed your shoulder and softly asked, “Would you like some help?”

Shock. That was new, and funny. You didn’t know he was capable of speaking softly. You didn’t know it was possible to anticipate a question before it was asked. Curiosity. The indirect connection was so new (and admittedly faint) you hadn’t seen Papyrus’s soul on their radar. But now he could feel your awareness.

Keen. Sharp. Analytic. Precise. A laser sight pointed directly at his chest. A bloodhound having caught a scent. An eagle having spotted a mouse.

His right eye glowed softly orange behind his lid and he gently pushed the finest tendril of magic from his soul out to theirs. Carefully. Carefully. Carefully he used that gossamer strand to lift. Not too much magic, now. He couldn’t, he shouldn’t connect himself to your soul any more than he already had.

It just felt so nice to be so trusted. To feel. To know. It was soothing. It was exciting. A new adventure. A new favorite song to fall asleep to.

You were right. Levels of Friendship. It made sense now, those grey areas in between Stranger and Trusted Confidant. He hadn’t really known you. He still didn’t, much to his intense frustration, even with this much, this close of contact with your soul. A puzzle that he was incapable of solving. Not without help. Not without permission. But he did know your better, now. And that was enough. It had to be.

Your feet released from the snow, barely, as he carefully lifted and he nearly choked on the intensity of the awe that shot its way directly up that indirect connection and bored into his core.

He yelped out loud when your concentration and attention chased the feeling through that indirect connection, running straight for his soul and poising to dive in.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Papyrus leapt away from you like he’d been burnt, and with a shout to match. He stumbled backwards and fell into the snow, eyes wide and chest heaving. Your soul jumped back into your chest. You and Sans both swore under your breath and jumped after him.

“Oooooh gosh, I’m so sorry! Are you alright? Ah hell.”

“what happened!?”

“I don’t know! He was using magic to pick me up to show me what the magic felt like and I tried to … I dunno… Tried to grab it, I guess? Figure out what was happening? I’m trying to feel magic in my soul, right? So I could do the gravity thing? Wasn’t that what I was supposed to do? Figure out what magic feels like? There was magic, I tried to feel it!”

You and Sans pulled Papyrus to his feet together, both of you noticing that he looked a bit like he’d seen a ghost, but he grinned widely and put his hands on his hips to recreate his heroic pose. “WOWIE! I HAVE NEVER MET SUCH A PASSIONATE SOUL BEFORE! THAT WAS TRULY IMPRESSIVE!”

“Papyrus The Great, you gave me a damn heart attack. Are you ok? Sidenote, you really need a surname because I can’t use your full name to communicate my seriousness if you only have one.”

“THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS ALWAYS MORE THAN OKAY! AND ONE NAME IS MORE THAN ENOUGH FOR SOMEONE AS GREAT AND MEMORABLE AND UNMISTAKEABLE AS I!”

“bro, can we talk?” Sans looked at you sideways, his eye lights bright pinpricks in his sockets and his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets.

“YES, WE CAN! AND WE WILL! BUT MAYBE PERHAPS NOT RIGHT NOW BECAUSE THERE ARE VERY IMPORTANT THINGS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!”

“uh… no. right now.”

Papyrus squinted down at Sans and Sans raised his brow ridges up at Papyrus, both of their permanent smiles turned down at the edges. It was a long moment before Sans finally sighed and turned away, shuffling back towards the house. “fine. maybe later.”

You looked back and forth between them, noticing that Papyrus didn’t exactly look happy about this development, but he didn’t look surprised either. You kindof had the sneaking suspicion that maybe you were the cause of it, and you shuffled your feet in the snow. “Pap, we can go in. I’m sorry.”

“NONSENSE! I THINK YOU ALMOST HAD IT! BESIDES, I FEEL LIKE MAYBE YOU DON’T REALLY WANT TO GO INSIDE AND THAT IS A GOOD ENOUGH REASON TO STAY OUTSIDE! SANS IS JUST BEING LAZY AND IMPATIENT.”

“Pap, he looks really upset. I think he’s worried about you. You should go talk to him. Frisk and I can stay out here and keep practicing, right?”

Frisk grimaced and wiggled their hand back and forth. “I can’t turn anyone’s soul blue and once Papyrus leaves the encounter, your soul goes back to normal. But we could practice with feeling magic maybe?”

“IT IS ALRIGHT! I AM VERY EXCITED TO SHOW YOU MY BLUE ATTACK! IT IS VERY GREAT AND DAZZLING AND I THINK YOU WILL LIKE IT VERY MUCH!”

“Pap.” You put your own hands on your hips and raised your eyebrows at him. “Sans is upset. I can see your blue attack later or maybe another day. I AM really excited about it, but Sans is worried and upset and you staying out here is telling him that his worries aren’t very important to you. We should go inside.”

Papyrus whined and danced on the balls of his feet uncertainly. “Will we really get the chance to be able to see my special attacks in action later?”

“I promise I will see your special attacks sometime soon. Ok? I really want to see it. I’m very excited about how cool it’ll be. But right now, let’s get you inside so you can talk to your brother and Frisk and I will work on cookies. Ok?”

“…OKAY.”

You blinked in surprise again. That was twice in one day that Papyrus had used a soft voice with you. And if that wasn’t exactly on par with the other earth-shaking and mind-boggling revelations that had been shared with you today, you didn’t know what else could be.  

[aiden-png]

Hyrule the baby detective?

ohohoho okay so.. I have three genres I like to write in my original lit: horror, scifi, and mystery. so I wanted to write a mystery for LU, multichapter and thoroughly outlined (partly because analyzing HSH was so much fun and I wanted to keep that going alkdfjkasdfj). so I came up with an idea for a crime mystery set in a vaguely 1890s ‘modern’ Castle Town city following apprentice detective Hyrule... I actually wrote a Lot for the first draft before realizing it was a bit too silly for my intent and I hadn’t outlined it enough to solve the sideplots I’d introduced while writing. so I scrapped this... 4? chapter first draft right before the climax and sat down to Really plot it out (I wrote this one in July I think lol)

I have a whole outline and I made a new setting: ‘modern’ university AU with a serial killer antagonist who takes an interest in Hyrule. I had so much of it planned out and I was hype to write it because the twist was amazing, which is the part I felt was lacking set up in the first try. but then classes started and I came up with another multichapter idea and started writing that instead, kinda.. oops!

so if I ever release a version of this fic, it’ll probably be an edited and finished version of the crack taken seriously first draft XD and I’m not sure if I’ll ever use the twist I came up with for the second version so I won’t share it, but it was Good omg.... I love adding twists into my multichapter fics, they’re so much fun aaa! :D

and I guess, just because I can.... have a (unedited and messy) snippet from it! :D

Hyrule was so nervous he’d managed to leave the office and board the subway before even opening the envelope. The envelope where the address of the client and time of meeting was… Hyrule sighed, carefully opening the clasps and peering inside. There was one tiny slip of paper and nothing else. Great. Hyrule pulled the appointment card out, squinting down at the scribbled address and-- oh dear, the meeting was in less than an hour! Hyrule’s eyes flicked around, only relaxing slightly as he realized he’d somehow managed to board the correct train.

He was a bit frustrated at the lack of information he’d been given, if he was being honest. A murder case typically had a name, some pictures, a report even when they got the call, but the card Hyrule held simply had an address and a name--Twilight. Odd name, but he didn’t really have room to talk, his parents had named him after a country after all.

The train arrived and Hyrule shuffled his way through the crowds at the station, climbing the stairs to find himself in the center of the historic district. Towering stone buildings lined the streets in streaked creams and greys, stained by coal even as most of the city moved to electric. The houses here were expensive and ancient and Hyrule knew the district was made of wealthy, private citizens more than anything else. People who preferred to keep their affairs under the table, tight-lipped and aloof, rude even. Hyrule lived in a dingy apartment, packed like a sardine in rooms barely big enough for a bed and stove. He felt small and out of place just standing in the street, suddenly aware of how cheap his white shirt and suspenders looked compared to the businessmen clad in full suits around him.

Hyrule rushed to find the building, glancing up towards the clock tower that rested in the building at the end of the street. Rows and rows of brownstones, all looking strikingly similar, before Hyrule found the bright red overhang of an apartment building, the address emblazoned on the cloth in gold script. He let out a small sigh of relief, still ten minutes ahead of schedule, and pulled open the grand wooden door at the entrance.

The interior was dark but spacious, high ceilings and sconces all fit with gas lamps that were out of use. There was a window at the top of the first flight of stairs, smudged and allowing a grey, watery light to pass into the foyer--the only light present. The right side of the hall held a built in alcove, a set of open mailboxes behind a desk and chair. An attendant sat in the dim light, head slumped forward on his chest, brown hair disheveled over his maroon uniform. Obviously asleep. Hyrule looked down at his note, up at the stairs, and quietly snuck past.

Two flights up Hyrule noticed a massive chandelier hanging from the ceiling at the top floor, visible through the gaps in the alternating staircases. A small man was strapped to the rail and ceiling, grease and soot staining his shirt and hair pulled away with a green headband. Hyrule found himself on the fifth floor and peering at the precarious set up the man had constructed--or was he just a boy? He didn’t look much older than fourteen, but he was clearly hard at work, wires looped around his arms and clamps in hand as he converted the chandelier from gas to electric. The kid shot Hyrule a questioning look and he realized he’d been staring, quickly turning away and facing the hall ahead.

There were six doors, three on each side of the hall with tiny golden plaques adorning the wood with each apartment number. Hyrule winced as each step he took broadcast itself in loud squeaks, the maroon carpet rolled over the wood doing nothing to muffle them. Fortunately the apartment he was looking for was the first to his left, room 501, and he took a moment to check his pocket watch and take a few steadying breaths. Before he moved to knock on the door he heard the click of the knob, and a moment later the door tugged open to reveal a man dressed in a dark jacket with dirty blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. They narrowed for a second and Hyrule felt himself stiffen in fear before the man grabbed his arm and pulled him in.

The door shut quickly, trapping Hyrule in the mysterious apartment with a threatening stranger and no escape. He almost considered trying to bolt before his eyes landed on the teen sprawled over the loveseat ahead, long blonde hair spilling onto the ground while his bare feet rested over the couch back. His left side was covered in a layer of streaking pink scars that pinched his eye slightly shut and twisted his mouth into a perpetual smirk. What made Hyrule pause however was the grin the kid shot him, warm and excited, and when he turned back to the other man he saw the tense posture had relaxed significantly.

“You’re from the agency, right?” the man asked, voice a bit tired and hopeful, like he’d been through this song and dance several times before.

“Ah, y-yes! My name is Hyrule, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Hyrule stretched out his hand and the man shook it readily, firm, and Hyrule felt himself begin to relax slightly.

“I’m Twilight. Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll fill you in on why I called.” Twilight offered a small smile and Hyrule let himself be guided to sit in a high backed armchair opposite the loveseat. Twilight shoved the teen’s legs off the back and came to sit beside him as he readjusted into a cross-legged position, grin still wide on his face.

“I’m Wild by the way,” Wild waved, Twilight nodding somewhat resigned.

“It’s nice to meet you, Wild,” Hyrule nodded despite the odd name, smiling at the thanks Twilight mouthed at him.

“Alright, so,” Twilight huffed, crossing his legs and straightening his back. Hyrule perked up, pulling a notepad and pencil from his jacket pocket and flipping open to a blank page. “I didn’t say much on the phone last night because this is a… well, a sensitive case, let’s say.”

Hyrule hummed, curiosity easing his anxiety enough to shine through. “A murder, yes?”

Twilight winced and Wild snickered at his side.

“Yes and no…” Twilight shot Wild a glare. “See, it hasn’t exactly happened yet.”

Hyrule paused. Huh.

“So you heard that a murder is being planned and you called us to help prevent it?” Hyrule surmised, only to be met with more laughter from Wild. Twilight shoved him but the teen only hid his smile behind a hand in response.

“Not exactly,” Twilight sighed, and Hyrule noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes. “You see, we have this odd neighbor at the end of the hall, and--”

“Twilight saw the guy’s ghost in a dream and is convinced he’s going to be killed.” Wild cut in, ignoring the sharp glare Twilight shot his way.

“Well, that’s a new one.” Hyrule raised his eyebrows, taking in the giggling teen and Twilight’s tired expression.

“It wasn’t a dream, I saw him, or at least I think I did.” Twilight sighed, fixing Hyrule with pleading eyes. “It must have been a ghost because he just appeared out of nowhere in the hall, covered in blood, and told me to call the cops. I did, but when they arrived they said nothing was wrong and I must have been seeing things. But I have a bad feeling about it, something isn’t right. I just want to make sure the Old Man’s okay.”

“When was this exactly? Have you checked on him yourself?” Hyrule tapped his pencil on the notepad, mulling over Twilight’s words. This certainly was an interesting case, and while he wasn’t sure how much he could truly do to help, he understood what Twilight meant. Hyrule trusted his own instincts--a bit too much according to Legend--but they hadn’t truly led him astray yet.

“This was a week ago. I checked on him right after I woke up the next morning. He was fine, not a scratch on him, but something tells me whatever is coming for him hasn’t yet.” Twilight twisted his fingers together nervously and Wild’s laughter petered off. “I’ve been hearing arguments from his apartment. More and more strange people have been coming to visit, and at odd times of the night. I think he’s gotten himself mixed up in something, but he’s pretty stoic and keeps to himself. I just worry…”

Alright, so maybe this case wasn’t as straightforward as he’d been led to believe, but Hyrule wasn’t deterred. Twilight’s words shone with honesty and he realized that the man was likely on his last attempt to find help. No one in their right mind would believe this story, no respectable detective would take on such a case. So it was a good thing Legend sent him, because Hyrule had literally nothing to lose.

“I’ll help you,” Hyrule announced, feeling a swell of confidence as Twilight smiled and Wild shook his head fondly. “If what you say is true there is cause for concern. I can start interviewing those close to him and keeping tabs. If he’s in trouble, we’ll find out, and I can make sure he stays safe.”

Well, he could try, but that was beside the point.

“Thank you so much,” Twilight said, already relaxing. “You don’t know how many detectives I’ve reached out to. They all say I’m crazy or trying to pull a prank.”

“Well, I’m here now, and I’ll get to the bottom of this.” Hyrule replied with far more confidence than he had. At least Legend had taught him one thing--how to bullshit. “So, why don’t we start with what you know about this man…”

Twilight sat back in the chair, Wild getting up to make tea in the adjacent kitchenette. Hyrule readied his pencil, hands steady as his nerves eased.

“We call him Time.”

[xaphrin]

I swear someone asked for a part two to this fic but I’ll be damned if I can find out who it was. (It might have just been me and my internal need?) So, anyway, here’s long haired Dami and pixie-cut Raven. Also, oops. There’s angst?

- - -

“You’ve lost your touch.” 

Raven lifted her eyes to Damian, watching as he leaned on the Bo staff in his hands, obviously smug. He tilted his lips to the side and shook his head, sighing, as if disappointed in her. Ugh. He could be so… condescending sometimes. Even if he was stupid hot. Raven set her mouth in a tight line and raised herself to her feet, feeling her muscles burn with the movement. 

She tried not to think about how the early morning light lit up the sharp angles of his face, or how strands of his long hair fell into his eyes. She wanted to brush them free, but her hands clenched at her sides. The last thing she needed was to touch him. That would open a world of possibilities she didn’t want to explore just yet. Although… she wasn’t opposed to eventually exploring those possibilities. Raven turned away and hoped Damian wrote off her flushed face for exhaustion.

“You told me I couldn’t use magic, so I’m not.” She dusted herself off and fell back into position, resting her weight evenly in her stance, her muscles screaming at her. It felt like it had been eons since she last trained like this, and Damian was clearly exploiting that. “Besides, you’ve always been a better fighter than me, and you know it. So I’m just trying my best.” She lifted her stare to his. “And you know I’ve always been bad at hand-to-hand combat, especially with you. You only kept working with me because you thought it would make me better.”

“You’re soft.” 

He transferred the weapon into his primary hand and stepped forward, his eyes calculating every move before she even took it. The slanted rays of the sun disappeared behind a dark cloud, casting curious shadows over his face, and that… that did not help her current problem of finding him hot. Her heart jumped up into her throat, and Raven shifted, averting her eyes as she tried to look at anything other than the way his stare bore into her.

“Tch.” He snorted and pulled his staff back into position. “When was the last time someone ran you through your paces? Me?”

The way her heart was beating, it was like he was putting her through her paces now. She swallowed a sharp remark and leaned forward again, trying to ready herself for whatever he was going to throw at her. 

“I’m trying my best.” She repeated, pushing her hair out of her face. “Besides, weren’t we going to discuss the details of the case? I’m going to be distracted if we do that anyway, so I might as well use my magic anyway.” She didn’t want to admit that what really distracted her was Damian, and the way his long hair fell from his ponytail and into his eyes. Or how he seemed to fill out in all the time he’d been gone, with his stupid broad shoulders and six-plus feet of height. Or the way soft cotton stretched across his chest and clung to his legs as he moved.  

She didn’t want to think about any of that, or she really was going to embarrass herself. 

“Let’s go again.” Raven settled back into position, her weight falling back onto her heels. “And this time, let me use my magic. Then we’ll see who’s soft.”

Damian smirked, his fingers gripping the Bo staff tighter. “If that’s what you want. But, I won’t go easy on you.” 

“I’m planning on it.” 

Raven surged forward, a spell spilling from her lips and she swept her leg under his feet. Damian jumped out of the way, rolling easily to dodge her attack, his eyes narrowing at her. He pushed himself back up to his feet, using his moment to propel himself forward. Raven stumbled backward, trying to think out her next plan and feeling a spell on her lips, but Damian had already had moved too close. He wedged his staff between her legs, shifting his weight and snapped the staff against her calf. 

Pain zipped up her spine, and before Raven had a chance to react, she found herself tripping over her own feet. Breath escaped in one quick rush as she ended on her back on the mats, cursing. Again? Damnit. It was just like they were in the tower again, where he always somehow managed to overpower her. It didn’t matter how many times they fought, he still beat her. One of these days she was going to take him down. She would pin him to these same mats, settle her weight over him, yank his stupid hair free of its ponytail and-

Dark magic snapped at her fingertips, and Raven felt her breath escape her lungs as he pressed the butt of his staff into her shoulders. She was distracted, and thinking about the warm weight of Damian underneath her was definitely not helping. She swallowed another curse and glared up at him, and his stupid hair still falling into his face. 

Damian sighed, his expression flat as he stared at her. “Soft.” He took a step back and tapped the end of his staff into the mat. “You didn’t even have a chance to get a second spell out.” He flicked his hair out of his face and motioned at her. “Get up. Run the details by me while you clean up. This training session clearly isn’t helping you any.”

He didn’t have to be so damn condescending about it. Grumbling more to herself than him, Raven sat up and watched him move to the weapon rack on the far wall. Oh. This did not help. Her eyes slid down the length of his back before settling on the tight curve of his ass, barely hidden under soft, jersey cotton. Gods, that should be outlawed. Raven found her head tilting just barely to the side, hoping he didn’t notice that she was obviously ogling him. 

“Dick mentioned something about a cult.”

“Huh?” Raven shook her head and straightened her back, color staining her cheeks as Damian turned around to face her. And this view certainly didn’t help either. He should not be wearing cotton that soft and that thin. Raven glanced below his waist, heat slipping down her neck as she glanced away, coughing slightly. 

He glared at her before rolling his eyes. “The cult? The whole reason Dick brought you here?”

“Oh…” Raven cleared her throat and crawled to her feet, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Hopefully she didn’t look as guilty as she felt. She stood next to him, and tried not to think about how good he smelled, even though he was sweating. “So far it’s mostly contained inside Gotham, but we’re worried it’s going to spread. A few fanatics have said some disturbing things, and it feels like there’s weight behind their words, but nothing really definitive.”

“Mm.” Damian seemed to be lost in thought for a moment. “Klarion?”

“Maybe.” Raven followed him out of the training room, the cool air of the house sliding up her spine. “But it doesn’t feel as… flashy as he likes it.”

“He does have a narcissistic streak. But there’s also the chance he’s trying to be discreet with this too.” Damian turned to her, his eyes dark. There was a heavy silence that settled over both of them, and Raven could almost feel the way his stare burned her. She swallowed, uncertain if she should take a step back or if she should question exactly what he was doing. 

“It’s good to see you.” His voice was a low rumble, and there was something in his eyes that made her feel like the world didn’t exist any more. Damian rubbed at the back of his neck and glanced away. “I… meant to write to you, but… I was undercover too deep to risk being caught. But, I thought about you everyday.”

“O-oh…” She swallowed again, her mouth suddenly feeling dry and awkward. “Why?” 

He blinked, eyebrows knitting together. “You don’t remember what happened? The night before I left?”

No? Maybe. That night had been a while ago. Raven sifted through her memories, trying to remember… oh. Right. There had been a party, and Zachary had sent her some enchanted wine to let her actually experience being drunk for the first time. It had been a nice feeling, one she didn’t really want to experience again, but still… it felt nice, for just a few hours, to be a little bit numb. Of course, now her memories were a jumbled mess, and she couldn’t really remember anything in its entirety. All she had were snippets of conversations and vague images that clouded her mind. She remembered escaping to the roof of the tower. Damian had been there with her, his awkward teenage body mostly limbs at that point. And then she remembered soft words and an even softer kiss.

They had kissed. 

But also… they had talked. There had to be talking in order to get to kissing. So… what did she say to him?

“Mm.” Whatever vague feeling of caution had been growing inside Damian seemed to disappear, leaving him glaring at her. Anger and hurt seemed to merge together inside him, creating something volatile. His eyes darkened and Raven felt like her whole world was suddenly crumbling down around her, blood pounded in her ears and shame colored her face. But there was nothing she could say that would make everything right between them. Her breath caught in her chest and she lifted her hand as if she was going to reach out for him.  

Damian spun on his heel and walked away, his shoulders square. “Ah. Well. If you don’t remember, it obviously wasn’t that important to you.”

That stung, and Raven pulled back a half-step. 

“Wait, Damian-”

“I’ve got things to do. There’s a lot for me to catch up on since I’ve been gone.” His voice was cold steel, the sound ripping through her like a knife. He stook a step forward and flicked his hair out of his face before tightening the ponytail on top of his head. “If you find anything more about the cult, let Dick know and he’ll tell me.”

“I… I can just tell you directly?”

He glanced over his shoulder at her, mouth set in a thin line. “No.” 

With that he turned down another hallway, leaving Raven feeling empty and hollow, like the world had just spun on its end. Her heart sunk into the pit of her stomach, and she glanced around the empty space looking for something - anything - that would help her make sense of what just happened. But, she was alone. She was alone, Damian was mad at her, and she couldn’t remember what she had said to him before he left. 

Great.

Her head fell into her hands and she sighed. What kind of mess had she gotten herself into?

[rex101111]

5,6,9,17!

5: Share a snippet that you're proud of from an upcoming fic/chapter.

alright I actually don’t have a lot written down for the next chapter of She Is The Moonlight, but I do have ANOTHER thing in the works so I’ll show that :D

so basically a continuation from that crossover fic between DMC and Bayonetta that was kind of a joke but suddenly I’ve started taking it seriously oops.

Origin story for Madma Butterfly and Sparda? Yes. Why the hell not?

-_-

Shecould never remember when the moment happened, only that one day, as sheraised her head from the wounds of a fresh kill, she could suddenly perceivethis bug that hounded her every step for as long as she could remember.

Hewas thin, lanky, his exoskeleton glossy and brittle, but his eyes were aremarkable shade of red, glowing like a ruby on fire. She looked at him, took astep towards him, and before her foot touched the ground she knew what shewanted to ask, "who are you?"

Tohave someone ask, to have another demon ask you who, not what butwho, was a step most never got to live to see, it meant you havefinally become something-someone-worth being aware of. A name was abadge of power, of honor, of respect.

Itmade you a target for those who wished those things for themselves.

Helooked back at her, his eyes roaming her form, his gaze bouncing from her wingsto her claws to her eyes, and he smiled at her with a row of perfectly jaggedteeth, "do you not recognize your own brother?"

Itwas a moment of shock, but only a moment. As he smiled at her she felt her ownlips, freshly formed on her newly acquired flesh, lift up to mirror him.Suddenly, a piece of the shattered world she survived in fell into place.

Yes,a brother, what else could he be? What other reason could there be to explainhow he has survived this long? For how she survived this long? The bothof them, insects skittering under the feet of giants and monsters, how havethey survived this long without being squashed?

Theyclimbed together, it would seem, some ancient instinct neither of them wereaware of connecting them like a chain around their ankles.

-_-

The whole first 1k words or so of this fic is me just spit balling an origin for demons in general and I think this bit right here is where I really hit the meat of things.

Or maybe I like kinda deep shit that sounds cool i dunno XD

6: What are some topics you will never write about?

Hmm, I guess a few things I might avoid writing about is...well I would have said gore a couple of months ago but since that time I wrote at least TWO fairly gory fics so that’s right out.

I guess overly...”weird” smut or whatever, you know the kind, because I can never really wrap my head around it and it honestly just kinda grosses me out. 

Other than that? Yaoi, if only because DA has scarred me and I honestly don’t have a single M/M that I care about enough to write a fic about.

9: Are there any fics you'd love to see but don't want to write yourself? What are they?

People need to write more Tokotsuyu fics. No not me, because I already have too much on my plate. There’s barely anything at all with them come on people what’s the hold up?

17: What has been the proudest moment for you so far since you started writing?

That one time I actually wrote something over 11k words long and I actually liked the whole thing start to finish. It was the first “long shot” I ever did and it honestly just felt like a hell of an achivment to finally get it down on document and actually SEE IT like yeah I wrote that, I wrote this whole huge thing and nobody can take that away from me.

Thanks becc!

Ask game!

[detectiveharmony]

Outlining Your Book 2

   I got so sidetracked outlining my 4 book fantasy series that I almost forgot it was Monday and I needed to put up a post. Oops. So here is my second edition of outlining your book. I mainly decided to write about this again, even though I have a video on YouTube about it and probably another blog post somewhere because a lot of people asked me questions when I posted pictures during my outlining process, so here we go.

   What is the point of an outline? How can it be helpful to the writing process?

   Well, how long you got? Because let me tell you, we could be here a while. Having an outline isn’t necessary for some people. SOME PEOPLE, I said. Most people need to use them, especially with stories that have a lot of characters to follow and stories with a complicated plot or some mystery to be revealed later. For starters, it helps with the fluidity of your work. If you write down a sentence or two for every or chapter on a piece of paper or index cards or whatever, then you can see clearly and concisely how your plot works together. There won’t be any of this, “Umm… did I say that three chapters ago???” nonsense because you literally have your whole book right there in front of you, and by the end of it you should know how everything works together. Secondly, it will save you a ton of time because instead of realizing the second or third draft through you forgot to tie up that subplot, so now you have to go back and rewrite a bunch of stuff, you have the whole dang book right there in front of you in concise little sentences so you remember that Sally getting her lollipop stolen twenty chapters ago was relevant in some way. Thirdly, it helps you get to know your characters better before you start actually writing a book. An outline is the plot. The plot is the decisions that your characters make. If you know all the decisions your characters are going to make in the book, then you have a better idea of who they are, which will help to bring them to life when it comes to the actual writing.

   What are the colors for???

   I use an index card system for my outlines. This entails taking index cards, cutting them into snippets, and writing a sentence or two of what that scene will be about. Some people use just plain white cards. I do not. I use the most colorful cards I can find. All the colors of the wind, or whatever Pocahontas said. These colors are plot specific. Again, I am writing a 4 book medieval fantasy series, so bear with me. It all corresponds.

   Green = Religious    Orange = War    Pink = Love story between Gaius and Demetria    Purple = Scenes with my antagonist     Yellow= Scenes with Demetria by herself    Blue = Scenes with Gaius by himself    Pale Yellow = Scenes with Drake

   There are a couple others, but these aren’t as important. Organizing my outline in a color coded way like this helps me organize the different parts of my plot accordingly. There is a lot going on in this book, so I need to make sure everything gets developed at an even pace. There is a rebellion group trying to overthrow the church, someone is trying to usurp the crown from the rightful ruler, two of my characters are desperately in love but always separated by circumstance, the whole country is thrown into a war—it’s a lot. And I’m not about to try and hold all of that in my head and try to make it fluid, cohesive, and engaging. I re-designate the colors for each book I right, so it isn’t always like this. The last book I wrote, I didn’t use color coding for. All my cards were green, but that was because the plot was really straight forward.

   Does your system work for you?

   Yes, it does, and extremely well at that. I started writing my medieval fantasy without an outline because I thought I would just write it, and then use my first draft as an outline. Nope. Big mistake. I ended up writing and rewriting it at least five times, probably well over a hundred thousand words erased and done over, just because I’d get to the end and realize something in the beginning didn’t work. I don’t think I’d write a book without an outline, now. It has also helped with the amount of writer’s block I get, because I always know what has to happen next. I’m never stuck wondering what to do, or where to go with the plot from here.

   But like I said, not EVERYONE needs them. Some plots are simple, and some people are just super geniuses and can write amazing books without having to use tools to keep them on track. I hate those people. I am not those people.

   Just kidding.

   No I’m not.

[darley1101]

It took me a while to compile this because I have a lot of stuff sitting in my WIP folder. It's kind of embrassing really. I have been tagged by several people and so I don't miss anyone I am just going to say thanks to everyone who tagged me. Off the top of my head I recall @blackcatkita @bobasheebaby @choicesbyjade If I missed anyone it wasn’t on purpose! I am just really, really bad with remembering these tags. 

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 I'll post a snippet of it or tell you something about it.

Broken Fairytales Part 7 Facing Reality: As the title implies this is part 7 of my dark TRR fic in which the attack at the homecoming ball isn't neatly tied up, it's downright bloody. In this chapter we discover that someone thought to be dead isn't. Though wounded and tossed aside with the bodies of dead nobles, he is determined to get help and maybe, in the process, discover if his brother and the mother of his child are still alive. Catch up HERE

Uncommon Part 3 Who Knew: Things get even more serious between Drake and Olivia. An unexpected source discovers and makes public Olivia's pregnancy. Catch up HERE

What Happens In Vegas: Things get a little crazy during the King's and Queen's last hoorah, especially for Maxwell. After a night of non-stop partying (was there an Elvis impersonator involved or had he imaged that) he expected to wake up with the mother of all hang overs...what he didn't expect to wake up to was a wife! (This is one of those never seen ideas I am toying with. If you steal this I will come for you because it is something I do plan on writing)

Chasing Fairytales Part 2: Liam introduces Karin to his friends after saving her from the unwanted advances of her boss. (Part 1 was my first TRR fic post and I am not sure why I didn't continue. It is something I will consider though if people are interested in Liam x Karin's romance) Catch up HERE

The Bitter Truth Dear Brother: One shot where Liam and Leo have an honest conversation about everything.

Obsession: The idea for this came from a one shot I wrote about how Nadia and Ava (MC) met Damien. It would be what I like to call a self indulgent AU where Damien and Ava (MC) fall in love while trying to solve the mystery of whose stalking Nadia. (Again please do not steal this idea. It is something I would like to write)

Your Betrayal Re-write: The story in its current state is alright. It just isn't what I had planned. I caved to pressure from certain readers and the result is me not wanting to continue with what's currently there. I have the original outline where Emily doesn't know who the father of her baby is: Zig or Nathan. And I sort of, kind of want to re-write it with that premise in mind. Only if you guys are interested though.

Friends With Benefits Part 3: More Zig and Becca smut that may or may not lead to a real relationship. At the very least it makes the characters grow and its' hot. Well, it is hot to me and one of my self indulgent crack ships. Catch up HERE

Wicked Games Part 3 Good Advice: Basically this is me re-writing Junior year because I hated how the book went. I wanted more drama with our LI and more villain behavior from the Alphas. So..this is me attempting that. There is some strong themes that include date rape (not of the MC!) and exposing college campus corruption. I will be revisiting this story soon as I really want to finish it for my sake. If you guys enjoy it that's just a bonus! Catch up HERE

Untitled TF One Shot A: A lot of people have been asking for Chris and Aria's first time. This one shot would address it, but I am not sure if I want to write it as a one shot or include it as part of a series re-write I am toying with.

Untitled Re-write of the Freshmen series: I am dying to fully tell Chris x Aria's love story but I have been nervous about re-writing the series since @maxattack-powell is doing it and doing it so well. We shall see if I can talk myself into this self indulgent tale.

Jenny's Blog: I loved the first two blogs I wrote as the MC from LH where she interviews a pairing. It is a fun way to answer OTP questions. I have files Chris x Aria, Matt x Ashton, all my TRR couples, and any pairings you want to submit. I already did this for Damien x Ava and Flynn x Lucy.

City Girl, Country Boy: A Big Sky Country AU story where Sawyer meets Morgan at the Vegas Pro Rodeo Championships and the pair falls in love at first sight. After three days of knowing each other they elope. Will city girl Morgan be able to hack life in Montana with a husband she barely knows and skeptical family members plotting to get rid of her? (Another story I am toying with so please don't steal.)

Moonlight and Moonshine: Smutty one shot of Sawyer and Morgan that I have been fiddling with and keep talking myself out of posting.

Connected: Parker and Katarina smut from It Lives Beneath. My bestie keeps requesting this and I swear I am working on it.

Death and Decorum Part 2 Contagious: The MC Rebecca makes a startling discovery that pushes her over the edge...and into Edmund's bed where the pair of them come up with the perfect plan to make everyone whose wronged her pay. Catch up HERE

Complicated Part 3 It Couple: Things take an interesting turn when a jealous sophomore lashes out at Tatiana. It is a rather intense chapter that includes a physical and verbal fight. Beckett and Tatiana grow closer. Shreya admits maybe she has a crush on Griffin. Catch up HERE

Plus a whole bunch of December and March challenge prompt requests that I am still trying to figure out what I want to do. Oops.

I am tagging the following people. If you have already done this or don’t wish to please ignore: @littlegreenmoo @blackcoffee85 @debramcg1106 @choiceslife @alj4890 @christopher-powell @queen-among-writers @kinda-iconic @lolablackwrites @elles-choices

[skybound2]

Fanfiction ask: 3, 4, 13, 17, and 21!

Sorry for the delay in answering this one, RL is very annoying at present! (So this was a nice distraction tonight :-D)

3. favorite fic tropes to write?

Answered here :-)

4. favorite fic tropes to read?

Not sure if it’s a proper trope exactly, but my favorite thing is reading outsider POV of my ships. I ADORE just catching snippets of my ships going about their lives and seeing how others perceive them. 

Beyond that, I really dig on some of the tropey-est of tropes like “Fake Dating/Marriage Until Oops! It’s Real!” and “There’s Only One Bed/Bed Sharing” and “Enemies to Friends to Lovers” and for no good reason that I can tell, I also enjoy a good Harry Potter Universe Crossover/Transplant. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

13. favorite snack/drink while writing fic?

Hot tea (anything from Earl Grey, to Moroccan Mint, or more herbal flavors, like Hibiscus Lemongrass - I just really like tea, okay?). Snackwise, it’s either dark chocolate pieces, or carrots.  

17. a fic you have always wanted to write?

YEARS ago (probably right after DAO was released, I’d wager?) I started to plot out a Mass Effect/Dragon Age crossover fic that was going to involve an Alliance vessel crash-landing on Thedas, and a pre-Reapers Shepard was going to have to go undercover ala the Star Trek: TNG episode “Who Watches the Watchers” and things were going to spiral out of control fast from there, with her becoming the Hero of Ferelden. My thought had been that mission was going to be how Shepard gained her renown in the Alliance, as opposed to being a War Hero, or the Butcher of Torfan, or the Sole Survivor, and is why she was put forth as a candidate for the First Human Spectre. 

I know that I wanted to explore the effects of the Blight on Shepard off-planet, and her struggles with merging the year she’d spent on Thedas with the rest of her life, and how she’d approach the Reapers as a result, and the impact that her presence might have had on Thedas as a whole. It was...broad and weighty and had the potential to be VERY long and convoluted, and it never got off the ground beyond a hefty outline and a dozen or so pages of an exploratory opening. 

I no longer have any intention of writing it, but I do think about it on occasion. Especially in light of everything that we’ve learned a bout the history of Thedas in DA2 and DAI. (You can probably imagine how excited I was to see both the planet of Thedas referenced in ME3, and the Krogan referenced in DAI :-D) And while I don’t have any plans to write it at present, I am still interested in the concept. 

21. if you could only keep one of your fics in the public domain forever, which would you choose?

Huh. That’s a hard question! If we are going based on popularity alone, it should CLEARLY be “Beating Like a Hammer” as that is far and away the most popular fic that I’ve ever published. And I AM pretty proud of it, as I think it is a pretty soundly written fic. But, I think I might actually go with a much less-read fic of mine called “Into the Shining Sun.”

The premise of which is simple, in that I wanted to explore the origins of The Illusive Man from Mass Effect, specifically, how he ended up with cybernetic eyes. It’s a short piece, and nothing overly special, but it resulted in one of the most touching reviews I’ve ever received on a fic; one that even years later I go back to read because it meant so much to me. (In summary, the review was from the friend of someone whose eyesight had been damaged in a manner similar to what I described happening to TIM in the fic, and the reviewer had read the fic out loud to their friend, and that person had been moved to tears by the story as it had hit home for them in a relatable (but good) way.) 

And that just...it wasn’t the first time I’d ever been told that a story I’d written mattered to someone. It wasn’t the first time I’d ever heard from someone who’d been thankful that I’d put words to paper and shared them because they struck a chord for them or were cathartic in some way. But I think it may have been the first time I really FELT like something I wrote mattered, if that makes any sense? And it impacted me in ways I hadn’t been prepared for, and for that I will always be grateful. And for that reason, I think if I had to pick only one fic, I’d want that fic to stay public forever and always. 

[darthbutterfingers]

Child Abandonment, Rey, superstition about Darth Vader and the Knights of Ren

So I wrote this for an online Reylo forum and got one positive comment but then as has happened before the thread died almost the moment I added a post (Kylo may be the Jedi Killer but I am the thread killer). Anyway, I thought I’d put it here and see what people think.

Child Abandonment, Rey, superstition about Darth Vader and the Knights of Ren

So I was in Wikipedia looking at the Chinese practice of infanticide (1), in particular the practice of female infanticide or gendercide. I was looking because I wondered if this historical practice (including very recent history) may have had an influence on the creation of Rey’s background. The practice both was and was not condoned in China. It happened because children were valued less than adults and female children in particular. Buddhist teaching frowned on it, believing the practice would bring bad Karma. On the other hand parents assuaged their guilt with the belief that the child would be reincarnated anyway (doesn’t excuse it in my book).

Infanticide (and mostly gendercide) was used as a kind of family planning method/population control. The Aftermath book series hints that child abandonment did happen in the outer rim/unknown regions. So I was wondering if Rey really is a child abandoned by her family as opposed to other options such as her parents being dead, or she was stolen by non-family before abandonment or something.

I’m going to go off on a tangent here but I’ll get back to Rey eventually. The Star Wars galaxy is one that seems to be rife with myth, legend, superstition etc. in relation to force use. There are the old myths and legends about the Jedi still floating around the galaxy. In the absence of the actual Jedi Order quite a lot of myths and legends etc. have no doubt arisen. Even with Luke’s attempts to rebirth the Jedi, there is no doubt still a lot of “fake news”, “alternative facts” and “convefes” out there about force use. Even Luke is viewed as a myth.

Add to that the spectre of Darth Vader and you get a really dodgy soup. Family connections to him are apparently enough to get you the march of shame from the senate as your political career goes up in flames despite everything you’ve done for the Rebellion and the success of the New Republic. The shadow of Darth Vader doesn’t just loom large for unfortunate family members though. His shadow still darkens the galaxy. Darth Vader is both revered and reviled. There is so much mythology surrounding him now it’s hard to know the truth (a fact Snoke has happily taken advantage of).

So imagine you’re in the camp that reviles Darth Vader or at least views him and anything about him with deep superstition. They don’t tell ghost stories in a galaxy far far away, they tell Darth Vader stories. So if your parents/family find out you’re force sensitive, or suspect that you are, and they’re scared stiff you’re going to grow up like Darth Vader and child abandonment is a practice in your culture...I reckon you can see where this is going.

The Aftermath series points to Jakku as being important to the Emperor and possibly the dark side. Is it possible Rey was abandoned there on purpose? A force sensitive child abandoned on Jakku by people with deeply held superstitions and beliefs about Darth Vader and force sensitivity as a whole. In ancient Greek culture babies that were deformed, or even had birthmarks, were abandoned on a mountainside to die. If force sensitivity was seen in a similar way then it makes me wonder if Rey was intentionally abandoned because of her force sensitivity.

Why Jakku? Was it a planet where young force sensitive children were abandoned in the hope that they would die and never become like Darth Vader? Another possibility is the idea of abandoning a force sensitive child on Jakku, a place synonymous with the dark side, in a sacrificial sense. Maybe even the idea that if they’re abandoned there and survive…sort of like a proving ground for the force sensitive (although it sounds a bit over-the-top).

Rey believes her family will come back for her. Was this just something she was told to stop her leaving the planet? Maybe they were going to come back…if she survived? Or maybe her parents believe she will be taken in by the force? Whatever they needed to believe to assuage their guilt in leaving her. She’s force sensitive so she has that to help her survive, right. In Rey’s case that turned out to be true. Still, it’s not a recommended way to raise a child.

Of course, along comes Unkar Plutt and his particular brand of child exploitation. Did her parents know about him or not? I don’t know.

If you ask me there are a lot of signs and snippets that fit with the theory that Rey was abandoned, possibly intentionally due to her force sensitivity, and that her parents may have chosen to abandon her on Jakku for a reason.

Anyway, back to child infanticide in China. According to Wikipedia “The Confucian attitude towards female infanticide was conflicted. By placing value on age over youth, Confucian filial piety lessened the value of children, whilst the Confucian belief of Ren led Confucian intellectuals to support the idea that female infanticide was wrong and that the practice would upset the balance between yin and yang.(1)”

Now in all of that did I read the word REN. My mind immediately went to the Knights of Ren. So what is Ren? According to Wikipedia “Ren is the Confucian virtue denoting the good feeling a virtuous human experiences when being altruistic. Ren is exemplified by a normal adult's protective feelings for children (2).”

“Ren relies heavily on the relationships between two people, but at the same time encompasses much more than that. It represents an inner development towards an altruistic goal, while simultaneously realizing that one is never alone, and that everyone has these relationships to fall back on, being a member of a family, the state, and the world.(3)”

So what if the Knights of Ren believe themselves to be an altruistic organisation with altruistic goals in mind. They consider themselves a “family” with the First Order as their “state” and the galaxy as their “world”. As Kylo Ren, Ben Solo has rejected his birth family and accepted the Knights of Ren as his family. That’s one reason why he knew killing Han Solo would be his test of loyalty, not just to Snoke but also to the Knights of Ren. In fact his birth family represent everything that the Knights of Ren and the First Order are against.

I’ve often wondered about Snoke’s statement “If Skywalker returns, the New Jedi will rise.” In which case they would be in direct opposition to the Knights of Ren as an organisation and a philosophy. Kylo Ren understands this. Remember Adam Driver’s comments about both sides thinking they’re right. The Knights of Ren believe themselves to be an altruistic organisation bringing order and peace to the galaxy. The First Order has the same philosophy – they’re bringing Peace and Order to the galaxy. Whether they really are is up for debate. The inaction of the New Republic Senate certainly fed that view though. There also seems to be a lot of organised crime going unchecked in our galaxy far far away as well.

So what does all of that have to do with Rey? Well let’s think about Finn for a moment. “I was taken from a family I’ll never know…” It seems to me that the First Order is snapping up children for their Stormtrooper program. Accusations of child abuse aside, why are they doing this? They need troops of course. Why is no-one jumping up and down and saying this is bad, stop it. Probably because the First Order thinks they’re doing a good thing.

We have a part of the galaxy where child abandonment is a reality. In the Outer Rim (and possibly the unknown regions, wild space etc.) there is much poverty. There is much crime. I’m not sure about slavery but can you say it’s not happening. The First Order probably believes that they’re doing a good thing by turning these kids into stormtroopers instead of them becoming criminals or being left to die or have miserable lives of some kind. Or at least that’s how it started (or what they tell Kylo Ren – puts a different spin on why he called Finn a traitor). Things probably got out of hand, which is why Finn said he was actually taken, not just picked up after he was abandoned or something like that. And I think we all got the bit we’re Hux’ Stormtrooper program is particularly brutal and dehumanising.

Another possible reason to abandon a force sensitive girl on Jakku was to keep her away from the Storm trooper program and the First Order. But then that would be giving Rey’s parents a bit of credit. If they really wanted to protect her then they would have stayed or dropped her off with the Church of the Force guys at least.

Oops – maybe the Church of the Force on Jakku also has something to do with why force sensitive children were abandoned on Jakku. Maybe her parents were hoping the Church would take her in but for some reason they didn’t (I’m looking at Unkar Plutt here).

Anyway, the Knights of Ren, believing themselves to be an altruistic organisation also believed that they needed to help abandoned children or at least stamp out any practice of child abandonment. Perhaps Kylo Ren knows what’s going on with Rey because of this (“It is you” TFA novelisation). Perhaps there was a force sensitive child that they had tried to acquire to become one of the Knights of Ren but she ended up abandoned on Jakku instead. If child abandonment is a thing in the outer rim etc. and it was something both Luke and Ben Solo were aware of, then maybe they had different ideas about how to deal with it, given that it is as much a bad cultural practice as well as a criminal issue.

Ben seems to know more about Rey than she knows about herself (according to the novel). He got this from her head as well as her emerging abilities. He knows what kind of child she is. A force sensitive child abandoned by her parents on Jakku – who damn well SURVIVED. But there is something more isn’t there. Maybe they know about one particular child and the story of her abandonment and had once tried to do something about it. Obviously without success. Maybe this was the thin edge of the wedge for Luke and Kylo.

When Rey gets to Ahch-To and Luke says “Who are you?” I wonder if he’s saying that not because he really has no idea who she is but, just like Orson Krennic to Jyn when they finally come face to face in Rogue One, he knows there’s something to her story that links her to him but needs some more information to connect the dots (no she’s not a Skywalker). Is this the force sensitive girl from the past who was abandoned that they couldn’t find or were too late to rescue (or something like that).

Rian has said in TLJ he is going to really “test” the characters. They’re going to face things that really get at the core of who they are. If Rey were to find out that her parents intentionally abandoned her on Jakku because of her force sensitivity and lied to her about coming back…that would test anyone.

Refs

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_(Confucianism)

(2) Mungello, D. E. (2012). The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500–1800. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781442219755.cited by Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_infanticide_in_China

(3) (Chi-Yun 34) quoted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_(Confucianism)