Well, you may have to write enough of the characters that plot comes out. Perhaps you need to introduce characters whose ideals or goals clash, and see what conflicts come out of that?
Okay, okay, I need to share a few snippets of my Sprawling Humanstuck SolAra Fic WITH GHOSTS!! because goddamn I love Damara in this fic so far. (cw: damara megido being a snarky asshole and everything that entails. also lots of incredibly gratuitous swearing and yeah.) Spoiler: damara talks to cronus "Damara, what were you even doing outside?" Damara turned to her coworker--Cronus Ampora, her long-time acquaintance and, more often than not, the bane of her existence. They'd gone to high school together, and they hung out sometimes, and okay, yeah, they'd fucked once or twice, but she sure as hell didn't like him. She didn't like most people, really. "Did you not hear my phone ring, or are you preparing some new dumbass pick-up line for me? Not that me doing anything during my shift is your business. Last I checked, we are exact equals on the corporate ladder." "Ugh, whatever, Damz. Seems like somebody's on the rag, eh?" Damara smiled as sweetly as possible. "If you say shit like that to me again, I will fucking murder you and mutilate the corpse so badly the cops will assume you were torn apart by wolves. I'll keep your dick, though. Maybe mummify it and turn it into a dildo. Now go tell the supervisor that I have to leave. Like, right the fuck now." "It's because of me, isn't it?" Spoiler: sisterly bonding “Aradia?” Aradia grumbled, turning over in bed. “Aradia’s not here right now,” she muttered. Damara rolled her eyes. “Wake the fuck up, kid. I didn’t get to actually talk last night because, surprise surprise, you were asleep far earlier than is even remotely reasonable, and today’s my day off anyway, so stop dozing.” “Do I have to?” “Yes.” Aradia reluctantly sat up, not without a bit of difficulty, and turned towards her sister. “Happy now?” “It’ll do.” “Good. So how was work yesterday, then? Got any horror stories to tell me?” “An infinite number, as usual. Most of them involved a drunken hooker who stumbled into the diner around noon and wouldn’t leave for several hours, but let’s be real here, that kinda shit is a daily fucking occurrence.” She smiled a bit. “I’d say I wouldn’t wish a job at Pine Street Diner on my worst enemy, but I’d be lying if I said that. Give that cunt a taste of humble pie for once. And a taste of not being a millionaire heiress to a global corporation. Seriously, what the fuck was someone as rich as her doing at public school?” “Oh my God, you’re talking about Meenah again? Give it a rest, Damara! You haven’t had to deal with her since you graduated, it’s all in the past!” “So I’m supposed to magically forget the systematic emotional torment I underwent at the hands of Meenah motherfucking Peixes--” “That’s not what I said, I just said you need to dwell on it less. Now tell me more about the drunken hooker, that was actually starting to sound kinda funny.” “I’m pretty sure Cronus hired her.” Aradia raised an eyebrow. “He’s not qualified to hire anyone, he’s not the manager or whatever…” Damara patted her sister on the shoulder. “You really are so naive. It’s adorable.” “That’s a weird thing to say. You’re weird, Damara.” “Says the girl who collects animal bones and is almost certainly gonna get knocked up by Sollux Captor someday. Assuming she hasn’t alrea--” “Oh my God, shut up!” “I hope I’m not interrupting this wonderful display of family bonding,” Dr. Strider interrupted as he opened the door. “You are,” Damara noted. Aradia laughed. “I’m not sure that’s necessarily the worst thing you could do right now, though.”
Been mulling over an original fiction idea. It only just came to me, actually. The bare bones of it is that when people die, they leave afterimage of sorts. Echoes. The quality of their life and the manner in which they die births monsters and magics that are utilized by the living. There's a city state to the north that plucks up young, beautiful boy children from the streets and rears them to feel no pain. Stuffs them full of sweets and rich foods till they're round, caters to their every whim, so they grow up fat and complacent. And once they hit fifteen, they die soft deaths. Poison, suffocation, drowning. They bleed golden ichor that cures every ill. Or maybe it's an intoxicant, can't tell which would be better. Slow deaths, prolonged suffering. That breeds monsters. Wights are born of starvation. Hungry grasping things, like centipedes or spiders, all limbs and teeth. They eat and eat and eat, till they burst apart at the seams. Gods are creatures born of humans who suffer greatly for a cause, or something of the like. It's a very specialized process, or at least that's what's commonly thought. Every creation myth starts with something like "and so he danced on hot coals for weeks, till his legs wore down to stubs" and the like. It's all about surviving long past when you should have just given up and died. There's a woman, commonly known as the Rat Queen or Plague Knight, a major figure in some rebellion or another, known for being clever and ruthless. Her side is losing, so the higher ups decide to deify one of their number. Her. And I dunno what happens next.
*busts into thread a week late* I've never really done much in the way of actual writing, but I've got some settings and characters kicking around my head that I'd like to get down sometime, and a couple of story/plot challenges for myself that I'd like to be able to write a story around. And damn if i don't love my worldbuilding. Unfortunately, most of the time when I try to work out plot stuff, it just comes out kinda... bleh to me. I've got a lot of story ideas that I've just gotten sick of and salvaged the characters I still like out of. (some of these characters have actually been through two or three stories at this point) And I feel like sometimes my worldbuilding or plotting can get... ossified, I guess, and kill the original "spark" of the setting. I dunno. e. yikes, that turned out more negative than anticipated. I guess what I'll do when I get some more spoons together is draw all my characters that I still like and post them here with descriptions, just to get my thoughts in order, and get some feedback on what I could do with them. @tinyhydra: Jesus. That is completely fucked in the best way. God damn.
A short thing that I'd like people to look at/critique. there are ghosts, but it's not horror. Spoiler: tentatively titled After Life Joan only starts crying after the coffin has disappeared completely under the dirt, after all the mourners have left, after the last remaining family member has said words to her tombstone. Peter pulls her into a hug, holding her until her sobs subside enough for her to talk properly. She pulls away, moving to sit on her stone. “I didn’t think... why would they be that upset I’m gone?” she asks, picking up one of the bouquets left behind. It probably smells nice, she thinks, and she loses focus and it falls through her fingers, hitting the ground with a soft thud. There’s dirt on the flowers now. Peter sighs. “I guess you were important to them. You were at my funeral, weren’t you?” She nods. “Needed to say good bye.” “Well we’re obviously proving that there is an afterlife.” Peter looks up at the sky. “Not what was really promised in the holy books, is it?” “Yeah, I would have much preferred not to have attended my own wake,” she gets up all of a sudden, crouching in front of the headstone. She traces her name, mouthing it to herself. “Is it morbid that I think my grave is pretty?” she says, getting up again. Peter shrugs. “You’re dead, that’s already pretty morbid.” “Fair enough. So, how has death been?” she asks, trying to adopt a lighter tone of voice and failing miserably. “Boring as hell.” Joan shoves a hand in front of her mouth, but still doesn’t quite manage to muffle her laughter. “Ever considered this might be hell?” “Yes. Multiple times a day.” Joan looks around her at the rows of headstones. “Shouldn’t there be more people like us?” she says, “This place seems oddly empty.” “I think you only come back if you have a body, and we seem to be the only people to have died here who weren’t cremated or atomized,” Peter says. “I’m glad you’re dead.” “Were you that alone?” “Of course.” Joan walks over to Peter, this time pulling him into a hug. “Hey, it’s okay, I’m here now.” Peter presses his face into her shoulder. “Yeah, you are.” They stay like that for a while. Joan tries not to think too hard about her seeming continuing ability to sense the world around her, despite no longer being a physical presence in it. When they break apart, Peter says, “You hadn’t hugged me like that in decades, when we were alive.” “No, I hadn’t. God, I missed you,” she says, and he grins. “We have literally all the time in the world now,” he says, and she laughs again. “Have anything to do, here? You did say it was dull.” “We can talk, I would think. About the stuff we used to talk about, before I lost my mind.” They begin walking away from Joan’s tombstone, towards a bench near the middle of the graveyard. Peter grabs her hand as they walk, and again Joan notices how strange it is now, to have enough strength to properly grip his hand. They sit, still holding hands. “Do you think the nature of God is an appropriate topic for two dead people?” Joan asks. Peter shrugs. “We can do that, or you can update me on what’s happened in the world since I supposedly left.” “Can’t do that, I’m afraid, I haven’t been really paying attention. Though you did manage to get forgotten.” Peter smiles at that. “You still remember me saying that?” Joan returns the smile, “What can I say, being dead is wonderful for the memory.” Joan lets go of Peter’s hand and pulls at her hair. “Huh, it’s brown,” she says, “and long again.” “You hadn’t noticed that we’re both younger appearing?” Peter asks. “I was distracted by the whole conscious while dead aspect of being a ghost. You have long hair again, too” she says, tugging at a strand of Peter’s hair. “Ow, why did you... wait that hurt?” he says, derailing himself mid sentence. “How does that work? I have literally walked through walls in the past year, or into walls, and that never hurt.” “Why would you walk through walls?” Joan asks, nearly asking ‘are you okay’ before going over those words in her head and realizing how utterly stupid they sound, now, even more than they did when they were alive. Peter looks at her significantly. “I’m dead and trapped in a graveyard.” He shrugs. “I was bored.” “So that’s actually a thing though, walking through walls?” Joan asks. She realizes this is a deflection from, well, any sort of serious issue that’s been brought up, but it sounds fascinating and she is feeling emotionally fragile enough that she doesn’t want to really discuss what else she has brought up. “Well, yeah. It’s not like I’m corporeal or anything, you saw my surprise when you actually caused me pain. Unless I’m paying attention, anything non living I touch, I pass right through it.” “Those flowers people put on my grave, they aren’t alive?” Peter shakes his head, “No, they’re not alive, they were cut. Just like you wouldn’t be alive if someone got blood circulating through you after your brain died.” “And we can’t leave?” “I think I’m bound to my body, and so are you, so no, we can’t. I would have left if I could.” Joan nods. “Your body must be rotted out by now,” she says, thinking of her own corpse, a shell that the people at the funeral home had tried to make look pretty, even though she died spasming, choking on her own spit. Peter had had a closed casket, she remembers that. “Do you remember what you looked like, after you were dead?” He shakes his head, “No, I couldn’t, I couldn’t bare to look at me. I was dealing with a bit of a crisis, those first few days of death.” “Realizing what you thought was a permanent end was really the beginning of something?” “Realizing that I was something I, in life, firmly believed did not exist.”
Spoiler: the rat queen They bring in a man from a land in the north, where dark robed artisans twist and prune creatures into useful shapes. Aya has heard tales, tales of deathly pale men, like wights born of living women, ruling over kingdoms built of flesh and bone. But she has never before seen a Butcher. He is tall and broad, a well fed man with a silvery pallor to him. His hair is thin and white, but his face is smooth and round as a child's.He has a certain breathy, ephemeral quality to him for all his bulk. He's quieter than a man should be, and Aya doesn't trust him. She supposes she wouldn't much trust him even if he were lively, but the quiet doesn't help. They bring him in because torture is a lost art, here. For all its faults, theirs is a soft kingdom. People die soft deaths, aided by drink and drugs. Aya's town favored drownings. She has fond memories of splashing in shallows of their modest little pool on hot summer days, tracing patterns on tiles with her bare feet. That was long ago. They bring her in because she is old. She is old and worn and she has pains in her chest that make her think longingly of the lovely little pool back home. They bring her in because the young dead make for terrible creatures to behold. And she will die here. Not a soft death like she's planned ever since her bones first started to ache. She will die here, in this little hollow under a hill, far away from even a town as small as her own. It is only fitting. She is assisting in the creation of a God, after all. Such things require much sacrifice. Ehh, this is absorbing more time than I'd like it to. It'd be nice if I could finish my damn fanfics first.
Fanfic contemplation, unlikely to go anywhere because it too many contrived things and not enough plot. So I'm fond of daemon AU and the Hobbit, but one thing from HDM that sticks out in my memory is Spoiler: don't read this if you want to avoid His Dark Materials spoilers That scene with the ferry, crossing the river that daemons can't go over. Remember how the boy from was a world like ours, no external daemon, but being forcibly separated did the trick (in an agonizing, traumatizing way)? I'm borrowing just that, without the significance of the other side. So, due to [shenanigans], the Company finds themselves in an unfamiliar land where the locals have daemons... and they think the Company are soulless revenants. For whatever reason, the Company needs their assistance and don't fight their way to freedom. Possibly because they don't know how they got here/how to get back. Finally one of the locals remembers legends of other worlds, ones without daemons, and suggests "hey, maybe they're not monsters. We could test them." Thorin as leader of the Company volunteers. This is post-Carrock (and either pre-Erebor or everybody-lives!Au) and Bilbo volunteers to go with, because they're talking about it being agonizing and no one should go through that alone. So off goes the ferry not quite to the other side, but far enough to force dust fogs to form into daemons on the dock. The rest of the Company is rather startled by it, the locals are vaguely relieved, and a witch among them sends their bird to tell the ferry to turn back. The two daemons staring off across the water and trembling together for comfort, Thorin and Bilbo sitting side by side and listening to the info dump of how daemons reflect something of the humans... For Bilbo I want to borrow the badger I've seen once or twice, for an earth-dwelling homebody who's fierce in protection of those she loves. (Staying in Bag End alone was terrible for Bilbo because he had no one in his home who he loved.) For Thorin, I want to be cruel, and have his desires and fears writ large in the form of a small dragon. She would yell at him that they're not their grandfather, as he was secure and complacent and only looked to dwarves--then only the gold--for value. Not like them, she would continue not unlike a harsher Balin, as they humbled themselves for the good of their people, and never fell to / recovered from the sickness. So the ferry turned back, and they got the relevant assistance from the locals, and began to feel out this new balance where the usually-unseen perspectives in Bilbo and Thorin now had names and voices of their own. Kili and Fili being too curious, having missed the lecture about the taboo, and going to touch the dragon before anyone could intervene. Thorin and her losing their shit, and trying (and failing) to apologize later. Bilbo and the badger, trying to test how close one of the boys could come before everything felt horrible, and trying to explain the feeling ("like someone said hello by reaching into your chest and squeezing your heart"). The regret/shame/mortification, especially when the badger and dragon realize they can't directly try to comfort them. The wonder princes getting it in their heads to make amends BG going and getting their own daemons separated. To apologize, and show willingness to understand, and because something about the dragon's shuffling wanting breaks their hearts. Somehow [more shenanigans] they manage to get back to the ferry with Thorin none the wiser. Maybe as part of a group going back to that settlement for some other reason. For Kili, some manner of raptor that can function in day or night, something that can go close to the cold stars... And, if they work together well enough, they can finally outshoot any elf. Truly delighted grins at the prospect. For Fili, a mountain lion (part because gold hair and lions, part because one fix went with regular lion and I liked it, part for pun because he's a dwarf so she would be a mountain lion.) Bonus fun when they get back to the world they know, and BTW dragon in Erebor. Extra bonus fun if the daemons, not being native parts of that world, don't have the same taboo rawness. Dís reacting to her brother the dragon. Multiple members of the Company being irreverent jerks and carrying the badgernto inconvenient places (until she vigorously protests). Tauriel meeting the raptor, and youngins in love having archery competition. Bard's face at the dragon. Thranduil's... But yeah, it would need to be AU in a lot of ways for both canons, to play with the parts I liked, and I don't have a plot in mind. Just the shenanigans of what they might be, and what they might do with that info.
I recently wrote a big thing about how one form of undead, Eternals, work in my fictional world; placing it in spoiler tags below. My interest is in having undead who can be main characters, who avoid a lot of the typical fantasy tropes by a more scientific (albeit magitech) way of doing it, and for whom being undead has major drawbacks and limitations, giving interesting things to work around. Living forever has a cost, and it can be quite nasty. My main character Anhelia Aescar is one of these in the main timeline of my story. Spoiler: Eternals How to explain them, these revenants? Well, Anhelia’s culture (WIP name is “Arden”, but I’m not exactly happy with it) decides to bring what it considers its best and brightest back from the dead. The selection must be ahead of time, because it requires setting up a trap for the soul to avoid it slipping away. It is done without the knowledge of the selected person and is costly in materials and effort. Although some may be pretty sure they’re going to be marked, nobody is ever told for sure. The body cannot be too badly damaged. Wounds can be repaired, major separations reattached etc, but there must be fairly good material to work with. Some ailments interfere with the process, general frailty causes problems, and total bodily destruction makes it impossible. However, the latter restriction has more to do with ethical restraint; it is, secretly, possible (though even more challenging) to perform a resurrection into a donor body, and even an artificial one. Major work must be done on the body to prepare it. First, blood is drained from the body. Then, devices are surgically implanted into the body. These are anchors for the magics to be done and also help support the new life system. I’m going to have to work out more details on this part; I have the basics but there’s clearly more complexity there). Next, all physical wounds need to be repaired and bonded, so that the circulatory system can be filled with seeded blue ichor, which immediately follows. This fluid permeates every part of the body. It will provide the circulatory fluid for the new life, and also starts breaking down much of the contents of the body’s cells as food for the other part, the “seeded” part. The ichor is full of the seeds for a lifeform of sorts, virus-like things but not quite of this world, that take over the cells in the body and convert them, coopt them into being part of themselves, taking over many of the roles those cells originally performed. These changeling things leave the cells all slightly translucent, and a shade of grey tinged blue by the ichor. They convert the digestive system, they preserve the behavior of muscles and nerves, they repair, they build, they whisper messages to each other in the new body’s alien code. The body they leave behind is different, and not just in color, though that’s a significant change. Pale-skinned people are dusty white, tinged blue, with darker areas where the skin is thinner like under the eyes, and the mucus membranes are darker too. Darker skin is a more ashen, charcoal-tinged shade. The body must still eat and drink, but much less, because it now gains sustenance only by magically guided energy. Food is just a source of raw materials for bodily repair now. The same with water. The body no longer sweats, no longer shivers. It’s also now cold-blooded; no internal heat is generated. Fortunately the ichor is a natural antifreeze that inhibits damage from getting too cold, but the body’s ability to function depends on being kept at a warm temperature, and an Eternal will become sluggish in cold without a heat source, and eventually will fall into a hibernatory torpor. Said magical life-force energy is not eaten. In the creating laboratory it is fed by cables and field technology, and in a hibernatorium, the same, but out in the world there is no guarantee of such being available and so an Eternal has an in-built tap into the life energies of intelligent life in the vicinity. It’s one of those implanted devices. It has a range of a mile or two, and works automatically, draining what the Eternal needs from everything nearby. The more people there are, the less of a load this places on individuals. However, in lower population areas, the drain of an Eternal on nearby intelligent life is severe, and may cause lassitude, sickness or even death, depending on the Eternal’s energy needs and the fortitude of those nearby. The Eternal themselves cannot control this, and cannot prevent the draining. It is for this reason that if an Eternal must travel, they are placed into a hibernatorium and transported in suspended animation. They might e.g. kill the crew of the ship they are being moved on, otherwise. After the body is prepared, the soul is drawn back into the body and is anchored by multiple dimension-piercing psychic anchors implanted within so it cannot slip away. It is integrated into the new flesh and new brain matter and is fed with external energy to feed it while it undergoes the difficult process of reintegration. Sometimes the procedure is a failure and an empty body is left un-filled, but most are successful. Awakening soon follows and the newly reborn Eternal must undergo significant therapy to attune themselves to the new body and its limitations. Because limitations there most definitely are. Aside from the cold-bloodedness and power-draining, there are issues such as the body not repairing itself as well as it used to. The skin in particular needs frequent moisturizing so as not to dry out, and creams to protect against damage from the sun and other environmental factors. The eyes get very dry without the application of artificial tears. The mouth needs wetting because saliva is no longer generated. And then there are the cosmetic things. The body loses all body fat during the process, which is kind of a shame because insulation would be useful, but there you go. Having zero body fat might sound like a good thing in our skinniness-obsessed culture, but it’s really not. Think of how bizarre bodybuilders look, all stringy muscle and bulging veins. Now think of that with pale-translucent Eternal skin. Now think of it on someone who wasn’t necessarily a great physical specimen in the first place, and once you’re Eternal, you can’t improve your body through exercise, it’s pretty much fixed. If body fat gave any degree of shape before death, the person coming back will look very different. Breasts? Gone. Curves? Mostly gone. And the skin’s not gone, and may be horribly loose. The technicians preparing the body can to a degree fix this, but not completely. No head hair, no body hair. Most Eternals wear wigs, unless their pre-death appearance was already bald or close to it. All wear makeup, because they look horrible to human eyes otherwise, with dark hollows around the eyes and cheeks. Their eyesight is now much more sensitive to bright light, so sunglasses are a good idea. This is compensated for by better night vision. Hearing is also improved, but the senses of smell and taste are mostly gone. Touch is a mixed bag, and depends on the quality of the restoration job and a fair amount of luck. The Eternal can look forward to a long undeath, provided they take care of their physical body which does not self-repair nearly as well as the one they had before. Access to technicians who know how to work on issues with them is important, and these cannot be found everywhere.
I had the idea a while back for a RWBY fanfic about a faunus getting surgically altered to appear like a human, and after some debate I decided Weiss would be appropriately angsty. Here's what I have come up with so far. Warning: I am a rambley bastard, and this is already too long. Spoiler: The Negotiation of Bodies You don't remember your mother. You are told she was taller than your father, broader too, a solid wall of muscle with snow white hair and a gentle smile. That she was a huntress of some renown, a skilled fighter, a fiercely passionate woman. The kind of woman who would fight to the death for those she loved. You are told that she left when you were an infant. You are not told why. ----- Your father is a small man. You don't know it yet. To you, he is a giant. To you, he is the strongest person in the world. He comes home tired most days. You learn to read the lines of his face, to anticipate his moods. You know when to push and when to back off. You know how to get what you need from him. You did not always know, but you have learned, and you think that is what really matters. He calls you his lark, his lovely little sparrow hawk. He tells you that he loves you. He does not mean to hurt you, but you are small and fragile and he does not know how to raise a child. He worries about you. He worries about himself. He hates that your mother left you to him, but he does not hate your mother, and he does not hate you. This, he does not tell you. That is okay. You will figure it out on your own. ------- When you are four, you first learn what a faunus is. Your mother is a faunus. It makes you feel close to her in a way you never have before. You hold the knowledge close to your chest, bury your joy in the deep recesses of your heart where you keep all your most precious things. In the dead of night you run your hands through the downy feathers in your hair and try to remember a woman you have never known ------- When you are eight, you learn what being a faunus means. You are good at climbing. It does not quite satiate you, not when the sky is so crisp and open just beyond your reach, but you have no wings and it is enough, most days. It worries your nannies, but your father trusts you, trusts you, and so you swell with pride and dare yourself to go to even greater heights. You get to being very good at dodging your caretakers. Sometimes you meet your father as he returns home, perched on rooftops and windowsills, shouting and waving for his attention. He smiles bright and waves back with both arms when he sees, no matter how tired he is or how much paperwork he drops. You weren't meant to see it. It wasn't meant to happen at all, but more than that you were not meant to see. They take the body down before dawn. A maid finds you huddled under your father's bed hours later. Her lips thin to a stark white line and she pointedly does not look at your feathers, your claws, your tail. She resigns a week later. It is kindness, you think. Kinder than what the others offer you, anyways. --------- Your father gains new lines to his face every day. He doesn't smile much anymore. You are certain it is you fault. You take to plucking the feathers in your hairline. They burn and bleed for hours afterwards, but you bite your lip and refuse to cry. ------- White Fang. Excuses. Filthy animals. Another attack. Three dead. Fucking animals! Should just wipe them out, wipe them all out! ------- When you are ten your father takes you in his arms for the first time in years. He tells you that all he wants is to keep you safe. He says that he knows you will not understand and that you might hate him for this. He tells you that he loves you dearly. You want to scream. But you don't. You roll around in your head all the words you've learned since you were eight. Your chest feels hollow. Your father holds your hand as a man in white sticks a needle in your arm and your whole world goes grey. ------ A bird's tail is its rudder and its brakes. You are not a bird. You don't miss it when it's gone. ------ You don't hate your father. ----- You might hate yourself. Just a little bit. ------ Rehabilitation takes a long time. The muscles of your back must knit back over the void where bone and fat once laid, and even with the finest doctors and careful Aura manipulation, it is a while before you can walk again. You learn to step carefully, to carry yourself straight and tall and proud. You learn to pretend that you aren't hurting. Your father calls you his little dancer, sometimes. ------- When you are eleven, you tell your father you want to be a huntress. Edit: Kind of fucked up the formating a bit, sorry.
I used to write. I'd like to actually say that I still do, to get back on the horse, but... I don't know. It just doesn't come easy anymore. Words and phrases used to just flow out of me, and it was great, but now, the more I have to force it the more frustrated I get. I've had this block for a few years, and I really want to be able to write, to tell the stories I've got in me, but idk. I even find it hard to RP anymore, but I'm still trying, because I hope that it'll help me to actually write? Anyway, hopefully someday I'll be able to write. Maybe y'all can encourage me along?
There's def the thing where you gotta work through bad writing to got to the good. Try some easy stuff. Pick up writing prompts. Give yourself permission to suck.
Spoiler: Wings John’s wings are not part of him. They are clockwerk, bits of metal grafted to his bones and muscles by one of the other Seraphim. He’s not sure which one, and probably won’t be until it’s his turn to perform the surgery on the next cherubim who is deformed enough to be accepted into the ranks of the Seraphim. That’s gotten far more common recently. They aren’t a part of him but he can still use them to fly. So fly he does, above the academy, pretending for a time that there is nothing on the ground calling him back. The Hunger always returns, of course. The academics are bastards, they made the very process of his mind being drained pleasurable, addictive, something he needs so he can forget his existence as it is. They drained him of pigment soon after his conversion, the little he had left before he was Chosen. The harvesting is much less cruel to cherubim, they are young. They believe that their parents would listen to them, and just in case one of them might they are never told quite why all their older classmates look as they do, and how exactly a Seraphim gets his wings. This is what i have of the seraphim thing. wrote it before i read the eternals bit, actually.
thank you :) Spoiler: here's a second thing (same universe, different characters) “How long exactly have you been a Wonderlander?” Okay asked. She was hovering with her legs crossed, elbows on her knees. Her wings were fluttering so fast they were a gold and red blur. They still were some of the little color in the dead end alley we were waiting in. I was crouched in one of the corners, trying to remain hidden. Unlike Okay, a fel, I as a diseased could not use any sort of magic to hide myself from sight. It took me a few moments to remember. I’d been experiencing the passage of time differently since my Infection, and I wasn’t sure if what I had experienced as years was not in reality only months. “A... year and a half, I think?” I eventually said, settling on halving the time I had subjectively experienced. “Volunteer or Given?” she asked. A year before I would have found the questions annoying, and a reminder of things I would rather forget. But I’d settled into my new mind, by that point, and so disclosing the information was more like retelling an interesting story I had heard from someone else then a disclosure of a personal trauma. “Given,” I said, making a vague gesture of dismissal, “which comes with the usual story. It amazes me how my family willingly had three children knowing that would mean the eldest would be taken away at seventeen. They had the means to not have any more children, and while I don’t regret where I am now I do wish I hadn’t been violently snatched from my home. They were kind to me, after all.” Okay shrugged at this. “I wonder if they thought they would be able to hide their third child?” I snorted. “I am far too aware that in my case they merely found me lacking. I after all wanted to be an artist. Mother and Father tried to hide their preference for my youngest brother, but they were ever so proud of his desire to become a businessman like Father."
Okay, instead of talking endlessly about mine and the boyfriend's Angelverse or my Roma Sub Porta-verse, I have decided to just link some of both. Angelverse doesn't actually have overmuch writing associated with it- just reams and reams of rp. THIS HERE, though, is something I'm still proud of in a minor way. Meek is the Archangel Michael (though he's not called an archangel in angelverse) and Luci is, well, Lucifer. Lost (short for Lostwithiel, which is actually a town in Cornwall and not an angel name at all, but it has the same form as one and spawned a rather silly joke...) and Polly (short for Pollux) are their respective boyfriends. Story is told from boyfriends' POV- normal text is Lost, italics is Polly. Roma Sub Porta is a Portal-and-Portal 2 AU where all the cores are Roman legionaries, because why the fuck not. It does have a plot but I haven't written all that much of it and what there is is of vaguely dubious quality. I have, however, written a lot of shipping shit for it. LIKE THIS. This is Factventure, technically. Gnaeus is Adventure Core, Spurius is Fact Core. (Decimus and Sextus, mentioned at the beginning, are Wheatley and Curiosity; Rufus real name Marcus, is Anger; and Aulus is Cake/Intelligence) Oh. And then there's THIS. It's also on AO3, somewhere, because I made an account just to post it (under the title A Diplomatic Mission). It has one kudos, which is one more than it deserves. Because it's explicit Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock version)/Saruman porn. whispers i'm really proud of it
I am SO EXCITED CUZ I FINALLY HAVE DECIDED ON A UNIVERSE FOR MY CHARACTER AND NOW I JUST GOTTA SORTA MORPH THE PLOT. I am really pleased that I finally have a DIRECTION to go with this writing. I want this story so bad it hurts.
