#wip: oteoe

[joswriting]

Badly summarized wip poll

@doom-inique-writes tagged "anyone who sees this" and I'll take any excuse.

I cheated a bit because i only have 2 wips but they each consist of a serialized kind of voyage? very distinct little worlds make up the whole basically. i think it's fair

I tag (no pressure): @fleurtygurl @bluberimufim @hippiewrites @hallwriteblr and anyone who'd like to do it

[klywrites]

new WIP excerpt

yet another new WIP hahahahaha ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ this one’s loosely inspired by one of Shakespeare’s plays (major clue in there as to which one)

Another ten minutes passed before Rodas arrived in his car. Ian left the bridge, hiked up the slope, and met him at the side of the road. Rodas drove a chrome ash 2015 BMW M4 convertible. Being a few years old marked it as the longest Rodas ever had the same car. He once claimed he had fallen in love with it, so he was more than willing to keep up the maintenance for "the old girl". It had a black and red interior, fixed with leather seats that vibrated to the bass of his music. Ian could hear UB40's version of "Red Red Wine" playing.

Rodas stepped out of the car and slammed the door shut, engine still running. He wore an olive green parka and his favourite WoolOvers scarf. His chestnut curls peeked out from under a black toque. "Here," he said, handing Ian a wad of cash.

Ian handed him the ecstasy pills and counted the money. At least Rodas had the decency to pay in smaller bills, for the sake of convenience and dodging suspicion. It still wasn't enough to cover his share of the rent, and he didn't want to rely on Emy's savings in case word got out that he had to depend on his girlfriend. But he knew that even though he didn't consider himself a friend to Rodas, Rodas considered Ian one of his best.

"Hey, listen, you think you can spot me a little extra?" Ian mumbled through his cigarette. "I can't make rent and I still owe a fifty to Oteos."

Rodas stuffed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a few crumpled bills. He unfolded them, picking out some lint in the process, and handed them to Ian generously. "That's all I've got left on me. I'm out of free ATM transactions, and the bank is closed for holiday."

"Thanks." Ian bent forward and squeezed the cash into his boot.

"No problem. We cool?"

Ian pulled his cigarette out of his mouth and stomped it out. "Yeah."

"I'll give you a ride back," said Rodas, returning to the driver's side of the car. "Why didn't you bring a jacket?" He got into the car and Ian followed.

"It wasn't that cold when I left, and I wasn't expecting to wait."

"Sorry."

From the bridge to downtown was about a fifteen minute drive. Ian was secretly glad that Rodas had offered him a ride back, otherwise he'd have to wait another hour for the next bus. Ian sat in silence while Rodas bellowed the lyrics and banged his head to The Beach Boys and ABBA. It would've been a sight to amused onlookers, to see a baby-faced man bundled in winter attire, bouncing excitedly at the steering wheel while a figure of brooding apathy and exhaustion slumped in the passenger seat, "Surfin' USA" booming in the car in the middle of winter.

Ian grumbled. If everybody had an ocean, maybe drowning would be a lot more accessible and its normalcy would make it an acceptable end for a pathetic life, and not just for cats and blind puppies. He couldn't bring himself to ask for the music to be stopped; silence would be worse, second only to something more mellow. He was glad to dodge both this time, for he certainly wasn't in the mood for chatting.

[joswriting]

⸻ WIP intro: On the end of everything

✶ Key words: science-fiction, multiverse, self-acceptance, queer main characters, gloomy comedy, omniscient narrator, toxic friendship / qpr, death

Most inhabitants of the multidimensional Whole (whether they be human, animal, sentient toothpick or hyper intelligent gas cloud) were out for more or less the same thing: to understand and to be understood. However, with existence being so enormous and complex, and their own minds being filled to the brim with contradictions and meaninglessnesses; they barely managed to understand themselves, let alone the situation they were in. Each person had their own way of dealing with this — some found God, others wrote poetry and many decided to ride their bicycles on pavements topped with 20cm snow. And though everyone had to deal with themselves on their own, all were connected through the shared experience of having to take part in existence.

It is fitting, then, that those who were connected by the mere act of living at the same time, should also meet their ends together; without ever having understood what it was all for, anyway. And so the "world" ended neither with a bang nor a whimper, but with a collective "What?". - Prologue

✧ general info ✧

✶ genre: soft scifi approaching science fantasy at times, NA, comedy, philosophical? perhaps not, apocalyptic (technically)

✶ pov: third person omniscient, past tense

✶ status: worldbuilding all but done, writing first draft

✶ (tentative) full title: On the end of everything + 25 ways to feel comfortable in your own skin

✧ main cast ✧

— Celia

full name: Silke Quesada

nickname: Celia

pronouns: she/her

origin: our universe

age: 21

occupation: student

orientation: lesbian

flaw: wishes she was normal

fear: being a burden, not being liked

sources: picrew | faceclaim

— Lea

full name: Beatrix Lea Reiter

pronouns: she/her

origin: our universe

age: 23/24

occupation: cashier

orientation: aromantic hetero

flaw: wishes she was normal

fear: being a bad person (she kind of is)

sources: picrew| faceclaim

— Cornelius

full name: Cornelius Brož

nickname: Nelly

pronouns: he/him

origin: a universe not quite unlike our own

age: 30s-40s

occupation: professor

flaw: wishes he could go back to normal

fear: never getting back the life he had

— Mouse

species: non-sentient mouse

function: former lab mouse, Nelly's pet

origin: universe that I like to call. the eugenics universe (it's not pleasant)

pronouns: it/she

now flaws <3 just mouse 🐁

sources: picrew

✧ practical ✧

✶tag/s: #wip: on the end (for reblogs), #wip: oteoe (for orignal posts such as intros and snippets)

✶ possible CWs: medical malpractice, experimentation on human subjects, dissociation, body horror, death, xenophobia, internalized homo-/queerphobia, internalized ableism, "romantic" relationship with bad power dynamics

✶original title: Über das Ende von Allem + 25 Tipps, um sich in der eigenen Haut wohl zu fühlen

✶ languages: German (original), English (translated by myself once completed). I will probably also translate snippets now and again

✶ writing tools: analogue writing in note book (1st draft)

✶ edit sources: images: space-like background | fonts: Heavy Rain, MS Gothic

✧ taglist ✧

no one here yet. ask to be added (comments, asks, messages, carrier pigeon)

[joswriting]

First Lines Tag Game

I haven't seen these going around recently but I quite like them so why not bring it back.

Rules: Post the first few lines from one of your WIPs; this could be first sentences of the whole story, a chapter of your choice or just from the most recent writing session

I'm doing my newer WIP "On the end of everything + 25 ways to feel comfortable in your own skin" and I actually only have three chapters down so far so here's all of them. I'm not chosing, whatever. My rules (you can also do it like this if you want but you don't have to)

i. prologue

T.S. Elliot once wrote "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper". The great detective Sherlock Holmes once, in faux delirium, brought forth the theory that the world shall be overrun by oysters. 5 month old Sara Smith from Toronto mused, the world would end when she closed her eyes, and be born again once she opened them. As it turned out none of these theories would be very close to the truth.

1. Get a job!

Like so many parents before you, you may ask yourself: "What went wrong". To understand this we must start with the concept of work. On many variations of, for example, the Earth - in such universes where it was present - existed a system in which one spent a third of ones life doing something one didn't want to do, so that one may be allowed continued existence.

ii. breathe

Celia blinked, confused. Or she would have, had she been able to feel her eyelids. The purple light engulfed her like a warm blanket and pierced her flesh like a thousand hedgehog spikes. She looked down on herself to find a dozen holes, but no blood. At those places where she had expected to find her insides bursting out she found vines and flowers growing.

Tagging: @flintlockheart and @hippiewrites but also I wanna tag @cream-and-tea @gummybugg and @andromedaexists because I'm interested :^> (but you don't have to do it if you don't want to) Also anyone who would like to.

[joswriting]

Last line tag

Thank you for the tag @oh-no-another-idea !! I haven't written anything since Saturday but here is the last paragraph of chapter ii of On the end of everything

She could feel her lungs shrink to the size of a pea. Celia felt like jelly - which made her hungry now. She remembered to how breathe

The good thing about the roman numeral chapters in this is that I just vomit whatever onto the page and go "plausible enough" (spoiler: she's traveling between universes)

I tag @linaket and @hippiewrites