#wip: threshold

[chrismerle]

Hello! Just stopping by with a question about writing XD Do you have any characters who's role grew bigger than you expected? Any surprising changes your characters went through during the writing process?

hmmmm

I suppose Shai probably counts

originally, Shai was my first Fallen London character, but at this point there are two very similar but nevertheless distinct versions of Shai. because they are still a Fallen London character and I still write FL fanfic with them and my friends' FL characters, but I'm also (very ... very ... slowly) writing an original story in which they're a key character (and borrowing my friends' characters because I genuinely can't conceive of what Shai would be like without Daniel or Ari in their life). that on its own probably counts as their role growing bigger, but even within the original story itself, their role has grown.

initially, Shai was supposed to be ... I guess sort of an Easter egg? in Threshold. the group of hapless normies was going to stick together, and Ivan would be the one shepherding them back to safety and back to their world (Ivan has also changed a lot, considering he started as a sort of generic grizzly Manly Manpain Sad Man medieval fantasy roleplay character I occasionally used on Gaia Online). Shai would just be one of the contacts Ivan used to help facilitate that, mostly there for my friends to point at and go 'I know that dumpster fire!' and it was ... hard to write? I knew I wanted to include Shai, but Shai refused to be a footnote. one of the most entertaining things about writing Shai is that they suck up all of the oxygen in any space they enter because no one can ask if they're okay if there's no air left to do so but that also makes writing them a bit of a bitch sometimes. they refused to stay contained by the relatively small role I'd designated for them.

so next I tried swapping Shai's and Ivan's positions, making Shai the shepherd of hapless ducklings and Ivan the contact who helped them out at one point, but that also didn't feel right. Shai's not heartless generally speaking, and they can be incredibly (sometimes detrimentally) loyal and generous ... to people who they've decided have earned it. outside of that group of people, they're generally a ruthlessly pragmatic shit stick who looks at life the way a child might look at an easily shakeable ant farm. they are not the sort of character who would just volunteer to help the normies out, regardless of how curious the situation was; helping would distract from satisfying their own curiosity. plus, Ivan is generally a Good Person, and would have simply volunteered to take over Shai's shepherd duties.

which is when the solution occurred to me: split the party.

as Threshold now stands, Shai first finds the party of hapless normies, and they deliver the group to Ivan to actually help them, so they can then prance off to investigate the circumstances of the normies even being there. but then shit happens and one member of the Normie Brigade gets left behind very early in the story (it's literally how the first chapter ends). Shai is loyal to Ivan, is aware that Ivan will beat himself up if he can't get Jayne back to the group, and is also aware that Ivan will have an enormously difficult time getting the rest of the group to safety, tracking Jayne down, and getting him back to the group. on top of that, they'd already given their word to the group that they would be safe in Ivan's custody, but suddenly Jayne was no longer in that safe custody, and Shai takes keeping their word very seriously at least if they meant it when they gave it. so Shai winds up babysitting Jayne throughout the story. Threshold's current format is that the POV switches each chapter, with one chapter being the larger group from Mercy's perspective and the next chapter being Jayne, Shai, and Shai's rotating cast of friends from Jayne's perspective.

and that probably answers the question! I don't think you actually asked for most of that info, but Shai is my tragic Mary Sue trashfire and I like talking about them.

[alectoperdita]

A little late for WIP Wednesday but what is time but an illusion?

Anyway I began messing around with a possible third chapter for Meeting upon the threshold since I was talking about where Kaiba goes from there and ended up with this. Not sure if I'm gonna keep it or what.

Some smut under the cut but it's pretty mild.

---

Plumes of smoke curled toward the heavens, ethereal hands grasping and plucking at the stars in the night sky. They wreathed a head of canary yellow, a lover's fingers combing through the mussed strands.

Kaiba was not this man's lover. He was most definitely not his friend. If they were lucky, they'd be no more than ships passing in the night.

Yet when the thin sheet draped across Jounouchi's shoulders slipped, unveiling tan skin sheened by moonlight and freckled with constellations, Kaiba fitted himself against the broad back and clasped the nape of his neck. Beneath his palm, skin contracted, muscles flexed as Jounouchi inhaled, then exhaled more smoke.

Up close, the acrid smell slithered up Kaiba's nostrils and settled in his sinuses. His discarded clothes already stank of smoke and charcoal. The last thing he needed was to take more reminders of Jounouchi with him when he left.

"Smoking's a disgusting habit. Good manners dictate you shouldn't do it around guests." Instinctively, his hand squeezed. Not enough to hurt, but it made its presence known.

Craning his head back to meet Kaiba's eye, Jounouchi took another hit, cheeks hollowing. His eyes glittered bright with a challenge in the darkness. "Bite me. You ain't no guest of mine. I didn't invite you to come in."

But Jounouchi had. He was the one who suggested they went upstairs. He was the one who went down and sucked Kaiba's cock without prompting. Much as he currently suckled on his cancer stick.

Kaiba opened his mouth to argue but found himself sinking his teeth into Jounouchi's trembling shoulder instead. For a beat, salt was what he tasted. If he bit harder, he was sure he'd draw out an iron flavor, much like the chicken hearts Jounouchi served to him downstairs.

The rest of him sank into Jounouchi, too, hard cock buried inside his tight heat once more. No condom, merely skin against skin. Kaiba's claws dug into the windowsill for leverage, while Jounouchi's nails scored the back of his hand.

Jounouchi's head lolled forward, a pretty crown of teeth mark astride his shoulder and half-hanging out the open window overlooking the sleepy street below, as Kaiba thrust. When he moaned, low and quiet, he expelled puffs of smoke from his flared nostrils, his open mouth as if he nursed a live furnace inside himself.

With a firm yank, he pulled Jounouchi's head backwards and claimed his mouth. Kaiba would draw out the fire from his ribcage and swallow it. Devour it. Let it light and fuel the cold, neglected hearth within his chest.

"Kaiba," Jounouchi gasped, arching into him.

The blanket fell away completely. Their bare skin pressed together, dotted with sweat. Funny, Kaiba didn't remember taking off the rest of his clothing. He didn't remember Jounouchi getting naked enough in the first place to warrant the modesty afforded by that thin blanket.

Moonlight cascaded over the sinuous curve of Jounouchi's puffed out chest, highlighting his stiff brown nipples. Silver pulsed between his breastbones as if some holy inner light leaked from him. But it was merely Jounouchi's necklace catching the light.

For a heart-stopping moment, he mistook it for a ring, another man's gift of devotion. But the metallic clink sounded cheap. They were Jounouchi's dog tags, the same ratty ones he wore through high school, beating against his chest.

Kaiba fucked him harder. Faster.

Time moved, inextricable, skipping and stopping between each stutter of their hips, each hitch of their breaths.

The night stretched on. It seemed the sun would never rise, so their ships would stay moored to each other's shores. Rocking, swaying in an isolated sea of pleasure.

Maybe Kaiba didn't have to leave. What world existed beyond the warmth of Jounouchi's body and his breathless gasps of ecstasy? They could be a dimension onto themselves, cut off from the rest.

"I'm close. I'm coming," moaned Jounouchi.

Kaiba grunted and closed his hand around Jounouchi's heavy erection. It jumped. Jounouchi clenched so tight, wetting Kaiba's palm with his release. He stroked him through the orgasm, which felt as drawn as long as the neverending night, and at the end of it, Kaiba was there with him, spilling deep into his pliant body.

But the night was over. The scent and weight of Jounouchi faded from his arms, a ghost banished by the sobering day. Kaiba lied alone in his bed in his mansion, curtains drawn and half-erect in his sleeping pants. He resisted the urge to drag a hand over his haggard face or pull the covers over his head. He most definitely wasn't going to touch himself.

Today marked the third day since his ill-advised tryst with Jounouchi Katsuya in his sad, thin futon in his shabby, tiny apartment.

Of course, Kaiba hadn't been back to see him since. Why would he? The experiment was already proven a failure. No matter what his unconscious mind may dream of.

(Jounouchi had, thankfully, not hounded him either.)

Right?

Right.

Just two ships passing in the night. Nothing more.

[fushiglow]

it's that time again. let this image enter your brain and then leave like you never saw it 🙏

and here's a sneak peek at chapter 11 of over the threshold (in case i fail at posting in time but i definitely won't maybe)

[thresholdbb]

He real cute in person

[baylardian-1]

sending these to heaven haha some old philippa doodles when i was drawing her arc with moidrah focusing on her tail but there out of order and vague zzzzzzzzz DONT WANNA TOUCH EM

and then a bad liam drawing!!!!! XD

[collabwithmyself]

Hey Clab, it’s that time of year again! I mean, technically the correct time of year would have been October but whatever. It’s the time of the year to remember the Santa clause AU! Mostly because I’m watching it rn and it was the AU that introduced me to you! I haven’t been as up to date with your OCs (mostly cause I have no idea where to start) but I love seeing your art! I hope your year has been amazing!

Thank you for the well wishes and also the psychic damage! Hope your year has been well, too! As for my OCs, I can try to offer a primer! A list of my OCs, alongside my main stories of Threshold: Author's Note, Devil's Advocate, Work in Progress, and Giving Up The Ghost.

Maybe I should do an open ask event for them.

Anyways! Merry Almost-Christmas!

[alexanderwales]

The Current WIP List

Inspired by this post by @a-memory-a-distant-echo, this is a list of ongoing works-in-progress, where "in progress" I will define as "I have added at least one sentence in the last year as an indicator of actual mental load being used". This does not include worldbuilding or planning documents, which spring up like weeds. I am also including the ones that I get paid for via Patreon or publication deals or whatever.

Thresholder is my currently ongoing web serial, publishing two chapters a week (in theory ...). It's about a guy who travels between worlds and fights other people who travel between worlds, with each world being a relatively contained book. Currently about 750K words.

Doomsday Pivot! is, in theory, the follow-up to Thresholder, about a start-up that has to make a sudden change in plans when the end of the world gives everyone a character class. First book is rough draft complete but needs some responses to developmental editing, sitting at 104K words. (You can read a noncanonical first chapter here, which I had previously made public on my discord.)

Millennial Scarlet is a webcomic I write about a gig-economy demon hunter. Writing comics is awesome, mostly because I get to see my words come to life. In word count ... I'm not sure right now, but probably not all that much. In the middle of writing the fourth issue right now.

Glimwarden was a web serial that I abandoned, a black mark on my record. I intend to go back to it at some point, because it was my wife's favorite. You can read it up to the point where it was abandoned here. There are currently ~3 unreleased chapters, but most of the effort put into it has been rewriting it and bringing it up to snuff, as well as fixing some problems with it. Will get a relaunch at some point, probably, when I'm ready to commit to that. No idea on the word count.

Untitled Dance Magic story is probably a short story, currently ~5K words. It's based around a magic system where people do ballroom dance to create architecture, and is a somewhat traditional romance and/or coming of age story. I started writing it on a whim after a conversation with @etirabys at LessOnline, and hopefully they haven't started their own story, and hopefully if they have, hopefully their story doesn't overlap mine. I'll check before posting, hoping to get this one finished and out there.

Kensuke Fucks the World is an existentialist horror erotic novel, which I describe as being "like the Erogamer, but sad". Currently 75K words, and might never see the light of day. I think I can wrap it up in another 25K words, but I think it needs a lot of work.

Long Stairs will probably be novella length in its finished form, and will probably not be finished. It's an old story, which predates Worth the Candle by a few months, and is about a military fireteam making a routine delve into an endless shifting dungeon that the US military has already pulled a lot of magic out of. Medics with clerical healing, wands and firearms, high fantasy and military. There's unfortunately some stuff in there that I cannibalized for WtC that needs to be changed so it's not a repeat, but nothing structural, and there are a lot of plot beats that I enjoy in both the 15K words that are already written and what's in the notes. I did not put a bunch of work into this one, but it was one of those cases where I was reading through old stuff and got enough of a head of steam that it latched onto me again. (I also don't know enough about the military or how to write that kind of stuff, which is one of the reasons that this fic never got my full attention.)

The Lot is a story that's basically just "the backrooms, but with cars". It think it was inspired by a tumblr post, but probably won't be finished, since it's probably novella length. Currently 9K words, more a character study than it is about people stuck in an infinite parking lot and scrounging off what they can find in glove compartments.

Kitchen Sink is a bureauporn/bureaupunk novel about the agency created to deal with the rise of mutants circa 1977. Currently a mere 9K words, but the plan was for each successive part of the book to focus on another genre being discovered by the department, so you'd get a book with wizards, with vampires, with aliens, etc., mostly with a focus on how these are handled on an administrative level. No way I would ever be able to sell it, unfortunately.

Robot Team Isekai (not its real title) is about a van full of kids on their way to a robotics team meet that get transported to another world where their individual specialties grant them awesome abilities in a "your hyperfixation makes you perfectly adapted to the fantasy world" kind of way, but for five people with different hyperfixations. 2K words, probably will never see the light of day.

Full Meta vol. 2 is a novel about a group of high school students who get metafiction powers, so like ... one girl gets the ability to read the text of the novel they're in whenever someone is engaging in exposition, one guy can read the flashbacks, someone can read all the romance scenes or whatever, and they have a dysfunctional time dealing with each other through college and into adulthood. I fully recognize that calling it "Full Meta vol. 2" when no first volume exists is a gimmick title and would be confusing enough to immediately turn people away.

Dark Wizard of Donkerk was an old NaNo novel, but got halfway dev edited before my dev editor on that one flaked. I think it's a good story, just a matter of getting into the guts of it and making it great, but that takes time. 173K words, but this is old old. If you like rough, unpolished creative output, you can read it on my website.

Untitled Hermione/Draco fanfic is, uh ... I guess according to the logs was something that I put effort into in late 2023. I have read vanishingly little HP fanfic, and I'm sure there's a ton of this stuff, and that some of it is even good. This one doesn't adhere too much to canon or fanon, and is mostly about trying to write a realistic racist who falls in love with someone he's racist against. 14K words, I cannot believe I added anything to this recently, but apparently I have.

Technically by the criteria set out, I should count all seven of the NaNo test chapters I wrote. Of those, the only ones that have retained any brain space are "The Inevitable Return of Nathaniel Greene" and "Dungeon Core".

There are a few more that are technically outside the arbitrary time limit of one year, but I'm going to include them because I have thought about them in the last year (and will not include the ones that I have not thought about).

Of Witches and Wizards is what I thought was a romance but was told does not fit the apparently pretty exacting mold of a "romance novel". It's about a widowed witch whose two sons have left for college and a wizard who travels the world writing about places for a travel guide. They fall in love. Tons of worldbuilding stuff as they visit different cities and see the breadth and beauty of magic in the world. 15K words right now, was going to be a nice and slender novel.

Eager Readers in Your Area was a short story I wrote a year and a half ago. The WIP is a novel-length version of that about ... art, artists, AI art, dealing with people online, and a bunch of other stuff. I wrote an outline I thought was quite good, but if the short story is the first chapter, then I want an equally good and tight second chapter, and that's hard to do.

Slaver Slayer (not final title) was about a slave who assassinates a high-ranking member of the kingdom and through an oversight gets a magical artifact that might possibly let her kill her way through the monarchy in an attempt to end the institution of slavery. The other protagonist is a detective who's grappling with his complicity in the system and is trying to stop her. Made it to 13K words. Another one of those that was outlined to be a nice tight novel.

[unidentifiedlyingobject]

Getting ready for the 29th (Threshold Day ofc)

[kittensbooksart]

A wip of a personal art I'm working on! Valeri is not having the best time of his life

[baylardo]

crumb of an idea where philippa time travels and meets her younger self aboard voyager

something something the timeline catches up to the endgame admiral janeway timeline (so like 20 years or w/e) and errrrr philippa gets recruited by the DTI something something *endgame!amelia being with the krenim and trying to mess things up and theyre using her to get to this alternate version of her sister something something both parties are going back to the events of Endgame so philippa sees her five year old self while she's trying to stop her sister from doing damage to the timeline IDK :)

*kinda got inspied from @elephant-in-the-pride-parade's Lesson Plans endgame chapter where the admiral says that philippa abandons voyager in the DQ, amelia makes it home after those 20 years but immediately leaves to find her sister,,,,,,,, my idea being that that timeline's amelia ends up with the krenim to try and get her sister back and its jorking up everything

[chrismerle]

Three Facts Tag

thanks for the tag, @ryns-ramblings!

Rules: Post three facts about yourself or your ocs/characters.

Absolutely zero pressure, but I'll tagggg ... @emelkae, @talesofsorrowandofruin, @kittensartswriting, and whoever else wants to play along.

wip: Threshold

The cast of Over the Threshold has been cobbled together from many places, but Shai in particular (and their posse) came from Fallen London. They were my first Fallen London character. I've tried to disguise it a bit, but the Failbetter-y DNA is probably still pretty evident in places.

Ivan was originally a bog standard medieval fantasy character. I used him to RP on GaiaOnline. He was angsty and boring and he used to have a horse. For a while I replaced his archery gear with assorted tactical and camping gear and I replaced his horse with a unicorn. He still has the mix-n-matched tactical gear and camping gear, but I decided the unicorn was unnecessary.

The exact lineup of characters got shuffled a lot in early days. Originally Shai was shepherding ALL of the ducklings, but then I realized it wasn't really in-character for them to just ... do that voluntarily. They've got way more interesting shit to do. At that point, Ivan had been a sort of ... contractor? who was going to help them. Their roles got swapped, so Ivan was the lead, but then Shai refused to be just a side character. So, I decided splitting the party was the best bet, since Shai's not going to volunteer to babysit, but they're also not gonna just leave Jayne stranded.

wip: Eigengrau

Surprising no one, Edge was originally a concept for a D&D character, in the unlikely event I ever actually played D&D with anyone. That's not actually why they look like a tiefling. They look like a tiefling because I've been creating tieflings since before I ever even heard of tieflings.

In my head, Adrian looks a bit like D'artagnan from the BBC Musketeers series.

Eventually, there are going to be zombies. And a cult.

wip: NaNo Project

There are four main characters, kind of. Three of them are out and about doing stuff, and the fourth is the reason the plot is happening but is also not in favor of doing fieldwork.

One of the main characters just gets called Stranger. They introduce themself by their ... title, I guess? And it's very pretentious, and two of the others just kind of go 'lol nah, we're not calling you that,' and by the time the fourth one meets them, the other two are introducing them as Stranger.

Two them are recycled from an older WIP that had WAY too big of a cast for me to reliably keep track of and not enough plot to actually carry it (I also recycled the setting, or parts of it). They both have names, but they don't use them. One of them goes by Oleander; he's a mercenary, technically, but more commonly an assassin. One of them goes by Jackdaw; he's a Frankensteinian healer-meets-necromancer. They're married. Ride, die, or reanimate.

wip: Ties That Bind

Honestly the biggest fact about Ties That Bind is that it's a fucking mess. I've restarted it from scratch twice and I'm probably going to restart it again because I can never figure out WHERE THEY'RE GOING. There's a starting bit, and parts of a middle bit, but the ending bit never really clears up.

Werewolves are a thing, though it's not spread by biting. They used to just be people, but then many generations back a mage cursed everyone on the peninsula and then split the peninsula off from the main land. So, werewolf island. There are several islands, actually, since the splitting wasn't a very precise process. They're called the Arthric Isles. They're kind of magical Australia, when it comes to fauna.

One of the only consistent bits is that Amity is a mimic who usually takes the humanoid form of the unicorn who raised them, partially for sentimental reasons and partially for practical reasons. Mimics also take on the "intrinsic" magic of the creatures they copy, and unicorns have absurdly deep mana pools.

wip: Brothers

It was supposed to be like 3k words long. It's over 6k. It's still not done.

I showed it to a friend who I'm no longer friends with (for unrelated reasons) and he said he liked it but the timeline was hard to keep track of, and I sat there thinking 'Ash keeps track of events in relation to his own age. The timeline is literally spelled out.' But I did not say that, or it would have been A Thing.

Their dad will show up. Everyone's going to wish he just stayed gone. Not everyone who steps out for a gallon of milk needs to come back.

[elephant-in-the-pride-parade]

For the WIP game ‘Lost and Found’ (because I also have a WIP with that title 🙂)

Hi!!! thank you!

Lost and Found is a little Star Trek AU fic i wrote for @maliciousalice as a birthday present and then stalled out on the last chapter. one of those "know what needs to happen but dont want it to end" and then i got distracted by life and other projects. (shes being so patient with me i feel so bad cuz i do wanna get back to it!)

I really enjoyed it. half the chapters were from the kids perspective which is one of my favorite things to do! trying to do a kids POV is always an exciting challenge. I think part of why i stalled out is that half of the last chapter needs to be from Tom Paris POV and hes a character i dont do perspective for often. but ive gotten better at him recently so 🤞 the last chappie will get rolling soon.

[fushiglow]

i've written not one, not two, not three, not even four, but FIVE THOUSAND words since the start of the year!! 5000 words in two days must be some kind of record for me, so here's a look at the next chapter of over the threshold for wip wednesday!!!

i was kicking my feet writing this scene and i can't WAIT to share the full thing. it's important that you know it was inspired by this famous lil doodle that moved mountains in the jjk fandom. everyone say "thank you, gege!!"

also, i couldn't resist a little dig at people who go out of their way to spread their coughs and colds around for everyone else. sorry for singling you out, americans, but please know that i'm just as icked out by people in my own country lol

‘You look ridiculous, by the way.’ Satoru shrugged, although Suguru couldn’t see his expression — not behind the mask and the sunglasses and the cap pulled down low over his forehead, tucked beneath his hoodie for good measure. ’Maybe,’ Satoru said airily. ‘But I don’t really care if it means I can walk around the gardens of the Imperial Palace without a single person stopping me for a photo.’ He made a little delighted sound in his throat. ‘And at lunchtime, too!’ The producer tipped his head to the side in acknowledgement of the sound argument. ‘Did you know people don’t wear masks in America, even when they’re sick?’ Satoru wondered aloud, reaching across to bounce a finger on the end of Suguru’s nose, also concealed behind a mask. ‘Not only is it fucking gross, but it makes me stand out even more when I wear one. Makes it a huge pain in the ass going outside over there.’

[baylardian-1]

go look at this cringe naenae post if you want the super context its pretty messy and vague and cringe rn

basically first contact gone wrong!!!!!!!! philippa ends up with an alien baby that is the last of his kind. and also becomes an enemy of the state to this other alien race thats hiding a BIG SECRET. and philippa is stuck on the planet all by her lonesome trying to uncover what's up with this weird baby and why does everyone want him.

[collabwithmyself]

Some QNA for my OCs from the server!

Jackie: What's Holstein been up to?

Gamer Trio: What games do you play?

Yukiko: What hobbies do you have?

Anon: Do you like your new role?

Friday: How do you feel about other days of the week?

Akiko: What's your favorite thing to plant?

Aoi: Do you think psychoanalyzing people without formal testing might be a little unprofessional, or even harmful? (I DO NOT CONDONE THIS ANSWER FROM AOI THIS IS MALPRACTICE)

Cadell: What's your favorite color?

Seth: What's your romantic type?

[noliaert]

hey zuko sketch here 👋

Basically I've been having another atla phase and I've been wanting to sketch something for atla, especially to mark how this series was what inspired me start drawing again when I was a depressed teen in 2015 🙏 so I just started on a sketch and we'll see. I also wanna try to redraw the whole amon/noatak thing I've already redrawn once to get a good look at my progression 👀