oh hey, I know the song!!! is it the paradise of light and shadows one i think the whole set of all three songs is called synchronicity?
Spoiler: TF2 fusion thing Soldier is dancing before Medic even starts the music. Dancing may be too strong a word for what Soldier does. Or too weak, maybe, Medic muses as he flicks lazily through his record collection for something appropriately loud and brassy. Soldier dances like he fights, loud and bold and graceless. His heavy jackbooted feet smash against the floor in a passable attempt at a rhythm, the force of it enough to rattle unfilled chairs and send a few of Gunslinger's ramshackle contraptions shuddering apart. Scout watches him, mouth agape, eyes jolting between Soldier's feet and his own, trying to determine how exactly he's supposed to fit into Soldier's demented little jig. He stomps, hesitantly, and Soldier roars his approval. "Took you long enough, sister!" He screams, slamming one foot down nearly on top of Scout's own, forcing the boy to scuttle backwards. "Yo, watch where you're-" Another stomp grazes Scout's cleat, this time accompanied by a meaty fist aimed to the left of his head. A slow, obvious swing that would have missed him by a mile, but Scout dodges anyways, an exaggerated jolt that earns him a few feet of distance. Soldier screams and charges forward, fist raised. Scout's left arm comes up to ward off the blow, and Soldier swings his right around, their forearms clatting together with a meaty thud. Scout howls, and tries to slide away, but Soldier links their fingers together and pulls him into spin, a brutish parody of Engineer's friendly do-si-do. Demo prods at his eyepatch, at the gem hidden underneath which has started to prickle and ache faintly. There's a rising pressure in the air, similar to what he felt when Scout and Engineer had their dance, but louder this time. Clearer. Music, he thinks. Unobscured by the twang of Medic's borrowed records, he can just about hear it vibrating through his gem instead of his eardrums. He glances around and catches Engineer rubbing at his forehead where skin meets faceted crystal, brow creased in concentration. Medic has stopped fiddling with the record player in favor of watching Scout and Soldier's brutish dance, his bare palm tilted towards them, gem glinting in the low light like a third eye. Demo grunts, satisfied that the others can feel it to, and settles back to watch the show, heavy percussion ringing through his head. Scout yelps and spins away from Soldier, who swings twice more for his head. "Who," he pants, "frickin taught you how to dance, moron?" Scout ducks another blow and aims one of his own at Soldier's gut. Soldier leaps backwards, startled but not displeased. I dig the FT2 fandom trend of SU style class fusions, and also I dig Respawn, and I figured that some weird sorta human-gem hybridization thing being a stand in for the usual Respawn system might make for a happy marriage of the two concepts. IDK. I feel pretty stupid and clumsy with this, but. I'm excited.
http://saxigenouscorviform.tumblr.com/post/152538805344/amontillado-because-its-time-to-jump-on-this I'm a trainwreck of poor writing decisions and it's @peripheral 's fault
Sapph ends up tieing her soul to the primordial incarnation of the sea. Everyone else just thinks she's suicidal. Spoiler: Sapph It starts with a hum. Not a buzz, a buzz would be too, too, hectic, too frantic. It's a hum, a low drone, smoothing and soothing out the spikes and buzzing of the world. The steps, the machines, the words. It tingles in your fingertips when you touch water. When you touch salt. When you touch sand. You feel it under your feet and on your lips, like a blanket, like drifting, like rising from a dream but still half-lidded asleep, like sinking from awakeness after a long day and letting your body grow heavy and float down, on the precipice of sleep. Like opening your eyes wide and breathing in water. Like breathing water. (Your mother pulls you out, frantic. Your breathing buzzes like pinpricks as the still water is forced out of your lungs. Breathing air hurts. It's fire and stabs, crawling and clawing through your veins.) You are not allowed near the water alone any more. But if you're quiet and hear, and listen just right, you think, you can still hear it. Just a touch into the silence, eyes closed, half-lidded in focus and wide open to the water. You breathe air, and it hurts, it buzzes as you inhale it, but exhalation is a drone, deep and long if you breathed in deep, and so you breathe, and listen. Your mother is loud. She asks why, you think, and you try to form the drone into buzzing words, but you can't quite manage it no matter how hard you try. How do you describe the antithesis, all that is different and is not, in a language that assumes likeness, and that which is? Your father is more quiet, but his words are stil buzzes. He does not ask questions. He does not ask for explanations. He asks for descriptions. You try to describe it, the deep quiet drone of water, of breathing water, of the depths and the quiet and the not-being-but-being, and the buzz of language, of breathing air, of pain and shallows and loudness, of the right-that-is-wrong. There are more doctors. Not only body doctors but mind doctors, and they buzz and buzz and it hurts and annoy you. The words don't work, and you listen to the drone instead, their buzzing drowning in the gurgling, the hum. They keep you from the water, the sea, your sea, and it hurts. Or, growing up is hard. It's hard, and no one understands, come to think of it.
Gonna try and write something silly and mostly dialogue. Basically just a run through of RED's idle com chatter during a match. Spoiler: TF2 babble “Heavy down.” Medic said dispassionately. “No he bloody well ain’t!” yowled Demo through a hail of gunfire. “He just shredded Solly not two seconds ago! Down my fat arse!” “Vhat? No, dumpkoff, our Heavy. Sniped. Unfortunate. I am falling back, vill regroup with Heavy and Soldier vhen they respawn.” “Demo, you oughta said something when Sol died.” Engineer said. “We all need to know who we have up.” “What we need is Doc who doesn’t spend over half the round riding Heavy’s arse! Can’t get nowhere without any bloody backup.” “And how exactly am I supposed to back you up vhen you both go galavanting off across the rooftops? I can’t follow you vhen you rocket jump, how many times--” “Aw shit, Medic!” “VHAT.” Gunfire and static crackled through the line, followed by a litany of heavily accented curses. “Scout? SCOUT.” “What, what, I’m listening, goddamn. What?” “You, you were the one that yelled for me! Vhat do you mean ‘vhat’?” “What the hell are you talkin-- Oh, naw, not you Doc, their Doc. Caught him all on his lonesome. Well, more like he caught me, but still, I got him, I got him. Oh, yeah, Medic down, Hardhat.” “Thanks, Scout.” “The whole ‘no names’ thing is getting a bit inconvenient, yeah?” Said Sniper. “Be one thing if it was just us, but BLU’s got the same nine classes. All pretty much look the same, come to think of it.” “Yeah! How freaky is dat shit?” “Just don’t think about it, lad. First rule a magic is don’t question a damn thing.” “Vhat, magic? Demo, you cannot be serious.” “Ey, alls I know is I don’t get it and I don’t need to know. Got me liquor and me paycheck, and to hell with our evil clones and our comin back from the dead.” “Ain’t magic, Demo, it’s some freaky deaky sci fi stuff, replicators an’ androids an’ clones an’ all that boldly going crap wit the glowy lights an’ the ladies with the green tits an’ shit.”
I don't think this shit's any good, but I'm having a lot of fun with it. Spoiler: more of the same “No way! Why da hell does dat BLU faggot get ta be the Scout? I’m the freakin Scout here, call him somethin else!” “Does feel a wee bit like giving ground, don’t it?” Demo mused. “Like saying those BLU bastards are better than us at what we do.” “Y’all are overthinkin it. Nicknames are personal. I don’t wanna be giving pet names to the enemy. ‘S like naming a pig you plan to slaughter.” “Don’t gotta be cutesy. They ain’t pets, Truckie. Just something simple an easy to remember, so we don’t keep getting confused.” “Just call them the BLUs, vhy is this so difficult?” “If it ain’t difficult, smart guy, then why don’t you do it? You never call the BLUs BLUs, it’s always ‘Ooh, Scout you dump-cough, get movin’, Soldier’s headed your way!’ Which freakin’ Soldier, dumbass?” The familiar shrill beeping of an alerted sentry rang tinnily through the line, sending Scout skidding into cover with a yelp loud enough to hide everyone else’s less than dignified reactions. “Woohoowee, atta girl!” Engineer said, patting his sentry affectionately. “Sorry to startle you, fellas.” “Freakin, who was scared, I wasn’t scared, fuck you, you were scared.” “Sure, son. Uh, anyways, Sco--, uh. Jackrabbit down.” “Wha, Jackrabbit? That’s freakin lame, don’t call him dat!” “He’s not you, Scout, nobody’s calling you a rabbit.” “I am.” “Oh, definitely. All the time.” “Well of course we’re gonna call him a rabbit, he hates it so much how can we not?” “You can’t call him a rabbit anymore, the BLU Scout’s the rabbit. If y’all start calling Scout a rabbit that’ll defeat the purpose of giving them all code names.” “Yeah, what Engie said!” “Whatever, Bunny Boy.” “Engie!” “Demo.” “I can’t believe you went crying ta mommy.” “Demo!” “He may not be a rabbit, but he’s still a spastic little gremlin.” “Ankle bitter.” “Flachwichser. Tratschante. Labertasche. Rotzloffel. Schlappschwanz.” “Alrighty then! We’re all agreed. BLU Scout is a Jackrabbit, and our Scout, well, he’s a great deal many things.”
New idea: Nobinary character, uses they/them pronouns. Rarely seen, mostly just discussed/referred to. Halfway through the book, revealed to actually be multiple people.
this is like the reverse of umineko anyway I came in here to grumble about worldbuilding and who wants religious dragons all piling up to get their children born in the path of a solar eclipse because they want all their children to be the chosen one result: Loads and Loads of Chosen Ones this may be an accidental metaphor for Gifted Kids
So I wrote a bit in Pearl, Interrupted (in the chapter I'm still working on rip) that I like! Spoiler: spergidot!!! “Uh, hi! My name is Peridot Zimmerman, I’m 16, and I’m doing pretty well! I went to a family holiday party recently and I actually talked to people!” Peridot seems over the moon about this, and the others in the group are smiling and nodding—Amethyst even applauds. “I knew you could do it, Peri!” Amethyst exclaims, a grin taking over half her face. “Ah, yes. But there’s more! I managed to stay there for most of the function. I mean, yes, I had to lock myself in my grandmother’s bathroom for a while at one point, but it’s still the best I’ve ever done!” She seems to notice your look of confusion. “Oh! Right, you don’t know. I have...difficulty interacting with others. It’s partly that I don’t get how they work, and partly that they just make me...” Peridot gestures vaguely, searching for the right word. “Anxious, I guess you’d say. People are exhausting and confusing, and I just don’t like to be around them much...and I think they don’t like being around me, either.” “I like being around you,” Amethyst objects. “And I totally need to take you out for pizza as a reward for your badassery at that lame party. I promised you, remember?” EDIT: It's occurred to me that I don't think I linked to the fic here! Here ya go. (CW for attempted suicide and lotsa other stuff. It's all listed in the tags.)
Another idea that I'll never actually use myself: There's that Colors AU where you're born seeing only in black and white and when you meet your soulmate or whatever you start seeing in color. So imagine the protagonist meets their soulmate, can suddenly see color, and hates it. "Seriously, who the fuck thought up green? It's so gaudy. Why is the world so ugly now? You showed up and now suddenly everything looks tacky. Black and white was so much better. But I love you so I'll put up with the existence of green just so I can continue to be with you. Ugh. Green."
I violently hate soulmate AUs except when people aren't taking the gimmick all super-serious and ~*~dramatic~*~ and ~*~romantic~*~. e.g. a friend of mine found a Yuri On Ice fic where anything nice you say about your soulmate appears written on their body, and my immediate thoughts were a) could someone accidentally end up with something horribly inappropriate written on their face and not be able to go out in public because of something said during sex and b) I bet tweenagers would get together and say things like "I BET MY SOULMATE HAS HUGE BOOBS" and giggle a lot.
starting to work at the thing I've been posting about lately on the worldbuilding thread, and, problem too many ideas. ... Well, when in doubt, start with mythology. EDIT: first bittybit; Spoiler When I was younger, my mother used to tell me stories. But these stories were different from the ones everyone else told. My mother didn't tell me that we came from the stars; she told me that the magic came down and touched our people, that it wrapped around our souls to make us what we are now. She told me those stories quietly, in a hushed voice at night as we sat in the trees, far from her homeland. These trees were pointy and the wind was chill, but she had come north for my sake, and here she stayed. She told me about the dark of the sun, and how it meant that I was special. Special enough that she stayed, when my father flew my siblings back to the warm southern forests. Special enough that even though I couldn't fly, she fought for me and protected me from the pity and harsh mercies of others of our kind. I didn't understand then what it meant, that everyone thought that my mother was mad. I just knew that she loved me, and that our ancestors once walked on the ground like I did, before the stars touched them and taught them to fly, and the sun put warmth in our hearts and fire in our bellies, and the rough edges of the crescent moon became our claws. I believed in my mother's stories with all my heart. It never occured to me to think that she had rewritten them for me, to give me something to believe in, with the sky forever out of reach.
♪ We are all... writing! And writing is... pain! ♪ A POEM: ACHIEVED. I NEVER WANNA WRITE AGAIN also, mythology is super interesting to me -- ill give that a read once my brain cooperates!
content warning: nonconsensual partial consumption of a sentient being (technically not cannibalism), suggestive commentary about an orc lady, and multiple weed references/jokes. Or, how I won a bake-off against a troll. Spoiler This story takes place a few years back, when they'd found a carbuncle down in Amberpine Pass and everyone and their dog went there to hit each other over the head with clubs to get to it first. Third night, troll encampment, around a fire with a troll and a fae. You there, in the black cloak, yes, you, you look like you don't believe me, because what should a human do in the troll encampment? Easy. They're really skilled with food. Best... darn, there are kids here, herb pastries I ever ate. Good teas, too. So the troll was brewing her tea and the fae was munching on something, as they are wont to, and in strides this orc lady -- (narrator makes some suggestive hand movements outlining her shape) -- from the looks of her tunic from Grimbluds clan, and I was like damn and the orc lady was like damn what's a human doing here. Fae pipes up, "She's dinner", and I'm like "the hell I am" and the troll is like "Thistle, have some more tea", and hands the Fae some before greeting the orc lady. Guess we were all the troll lady's friends, but now there's four hungry meat eaters around the fire and no dinner in sight, so orc lady asks, "So why is the human not dinner?" So I go and do the stupidest thing I could think of, and challenge the troll to a bake-off with the words "Because my food tastes better than me". The Fae perks up because free food -- as is custom with troll bake-offs, everyone gets something --, the orc raises an eyebrow and says nothing, and the troll beams at me and is like "Hell yeah I'll take you on on that." Luckily for me I had a bunch of leftover apples, my spices always with me, and the troll lady agreed to lend me some of her other ingredients. While I was merrily mixing an apple pie filling, with the darn fae constantly trying to steal some while I was not looking, I watched the orc lady scowl more and more with every ingredient, and I realized that I would not win her over with apple pie. No chance in hell. I go and fill three miniature pies, and look over to the fae, who is eyeing the bowl with the filling very, very greedily. "Hey fae", I say, "can you give me a hand here". His eyes switch between the bowl and me, and fill with suspicion. "What do I get fer it", he asks. "You can have the rest of the apple pie filling.", I reply, and he's like, "Only if you give me the bowl now", and I'm like, "deal". So the fae balances the bowl on his lap, and holds his other hand to me. At which point I grab my knife and take the hand. Now hand does not have that much meat on it, but it did net me a good amount of blood, too, and with some creativity I managed to fill the rest of the pie up. The Fae screamed bloody murder, but... yeah, I had kept to the bargain, and he realized he might end up dinner instead. For the record, the orc lady liked the hand pie. She still didn't like me, but hey. I didn't end up being dinner.
Anyone follow writing-prompt-s on Tumblr? There's some good ones in there sometimes. Here's one I bashed out in like 20 minutes, so don't expect it to be great or anything: "Get Up Soldier, You're Not Dead Yet"
