Tag: writing

The Mercy of Shadows (writing)

This one is a bit gruesome and very whumpy. And it doesn’t have a real ending, but it works. I’m hoping I caught all the typos

Words: 1293
Rating: PG-13

Trigger warnings: torture of a fantasy being, extreme sun exposure, injury, eye damage, skin damage

It was barely dawn and I had just finished shaving when the screaming started. I quickly wiped my razor dry, dropped it in my pack, and hurried to the street. No one else was paying any attention to it as I followed the sound. It stuttered to an end.

I turned to a merchant setting up her stall. “What was that?”

She shrugged. “What? The vampire?”

“Vampire?”

She waved vaguely toward the center of town. “In the convicts square. It’s been there a couple of days now.”

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Bonfire Hearts and Fool Waters (Shard-verse)

Word count: 2151. Rating: all-ages

Summary: before Daisy Hart became Wild Heart, she was just a strawberry blonde in high school. And the Ginger Royals recruit from all red-heads…

Content notes: mild-ish verbal abuse from a parent, fatphobia, alcohol, implied underage drinking, realistic depiction of drowning (everybody’s okay), possible implied violence

Note: the gang’s name alternates freely between Ginger Queens, Ginger Kings, and Ginger Royals

Daisy wiped the water out of her eyes and pushed herself out of the pool.

“Hey Daisy, can we talk after we change?”

She glanced up – it was Lily Mills, who was the fastest swimmer in the class, had red hair that glowed like fire unlike Daisy’s pale strawberry blonde, and was a senior.

“S-sure!” Daisy was a sophomore and she’d taken swim and water safety instead of basic PE because she had thought she was already a good swimmer. Turns out she was only okay – too buoyant after a puberty boost that had turned her from round to curvy, undisciplined, and out of condition. And then she had almost no friends – her best friend ever had moved away last year after middle school, her second best friend had found cooler people to hang out with, and her other friends had so many others that Daisy was lost in the crowd. Which lately was kind of okay, because once she hit puberty her dad had changed from ignoring her to yelling at her. She looked too much like her mom, he said. Why didn’t he take care of herself? She was fat and stupid. And it was harder than ever to act like everything was okay, and school was harder, and she was just hanging on. So it would’ve been nice to have one class that she could ace.

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Writing – A Mouth Full of Ashes

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This is the one I was talking about earlier, with Albert inspired by BaaingTree’s Alpert. But not as cool. This not a nice story. I’ve slightly edited and updated this from the previous version.

I wanted to create an alternative term to ‘golem’ since golems are Jewish and it felt culturely… icky to use in this story and I’ve heard complaints from Jewish folk about goyim stealing it. Feel free to steal this (fenndrell means mud-slave from fen + thrall). I’m hoping I got the Latin correct – feel free to let me know otherwise.

Words: 1755. Rated PG-13

Trigger warnings: slavery, major past torture of a fantasy / artificial being, past sexual abuse of a being unable to consent

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Donville’s Morning Prayer (Shard-verse)

CW: mentions of violence, gangs, and religious violence. I did a write-up of Nursgil earlier if you’re curious. Like any religion it can be followed by good and bad people.

Margarida Abreiza Samema Donville said the same prayer every morning. The prayer her aunts had taught her, that their mothers had taught them, probably all the way back to the when Nursgil was brought to the old country.

As she washed, she prayed to the gods: Dunu, protect me from harm. Aldu, guide me with your wisdom. Taus, lead me to where I should be and home again. Lords of creations, send your guides to me and keep me from weakness. And as she dressed, she prayed to the guides: Angels, lead me to reflection and not to self-flagellation. Devils, lead me to passion and not to disgrace. Spirits, lead me to knowledge and not to isolation. And to her saints, as she brushed her hair (and this is where she suspected her aunts would disapprove): Cheinte Samema, as you fed the people, let me too be fed. Cheinta Abreiza, as you led the children, let me too lead my people. Cheinta Margarida, as you guarded your town, let me too guard my streets. Cheinta Samtoma, as you destroyed the unbelievers, let me too destroy my enemies. And she pinned up her hair and set out her cosmetics as carefully as she burnt incense and lit candles at the temple. Dunu, send your angels with health. Aldu, send your devils with passion. Taus, send your spirits with enlightenment. With a steady hand and a firm heart, she lined her eyes with wings as sharp as thorns and painted her lips dark as blood. Amen.

She nodded to the mirror. Time once again for Rita Donville, Odd-eye, Bad Penny, Bloody Rita, to lead the Donny Boy’s gang to the destruction of all other gangs and total control of Shard City.

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drawing of an action figure's shoulder

Writing – BJD (Puzzle-Verse)

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Set at an undetermined time before Doll Eyes.

Word count: 404. Rating: PG. CN: mild injury (no blood or gore)

The screwdriver slipped from my fingers. This wasn’t working.

“Rowan!” I yelled toward my sister’s flat.

A shouted reply from the other flat. “Oy! Some of us are trying to sleep!”

I ground my teeth. The new tenant. A physician. Moved in two days ago. Kept mostly diurnal hours. I wasn’t sure why Ms. Harris thought he would work out. Bother. What time was it?

I glanced at the clock set to this time zone. Nearly eleven. The doctor would have gotten in an hour and a half ago, most likely and Rowan wouldn’t return to her flat until one. I’d just have to make do until then.

~~~

Ten till one. The smell of curry from the hallway – Rowan’s usual takeaway. I opened my door slightly. “Would you come in?” Her mouth twisted. “Please?”

She huffed slightly. She hated eating anywhere but home, but I wouldn’t ask unless it was important. She pushed the door open with her foot, her expression growing darker as she gazed around my flat. I found cleaning a distraction and rarely bothered.

“What is it?” she said irritably. She caught sight of my left arm and her tone changed. “Oh.”

I’d already laid out the tools on the kitchen table and she gingerly set her bag on the cleaned counters as I sat down. I’d scrubbed the kitchen, as well as I could considering. It’d given me something to do while I waited, as boring as the process was.

“What happened?” she asked as she leaned in to inspect. My arm hung limply, the shoulder slumped.

“I must have jarred it harder than I thought during the fight last night. The rotor’s frozen.”

She frowned, peering over her glasses. “The socket is corroded.”

“I’ll have it looked at.” She glanced up, eyebrows raised. Admittedly, I had the habit of forgetting things, but I’d filed this one as important. “Tomorrow. I’ve no desire to have it fail again.”

It took her only a minute to adjust. The time wasted waiting for her was irritating, but there just wasn’t a way for me to get to the back of my own frozen shoulder.

“I’m reconnecting the terminals now.” She closed the access panel and the skin melded, once again seamless. I bit my lip hard as sensation rushed back down my arm. It was nearly overwhelming but I allowed myself only a hissed breath as Rowan washed her hands.

I rose, flexing my hand to chase away the last of the pins and needles. “Thank you. Enjoy your dinner.”

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Open Locks (Shard-verse)

CW – mentions of ableism towards amputees, mentions of war and injuries from it, abusive personality (it’s Wild Streak…). Word count: 569, rated G

Andre ruminates on Wild Streak’s one friend.

The boss doesn’t have a lot of friends. It’s his own fault, you know – he’s self-centered, impulsive, and quick-tempered. Me and Charles are the only help he’s been able to keep, and honestly some days I don’t know why we stay. Daisy adores him, of course, but he’ll do anything for her. Everyone else in the community? They respect him, fear him, admire him, but don’t like him.

Except Magpie. I don’t know when they met – she’s about me and Charles’ age, younger than Wild Streak. But she can make her smart-ass remarks to him and he’ll smile. I mean, she’s careful, but not terribly so, not walking on eggshells careful the way people like Gimmick are, or the super-respectful way the way gang leaders are when they hire him. And he looks forward to spending time with her. We don’t need to remind him about their get-togethers, mostly, or gather up his stuff for him. And she trusts him – I’ve talk to other goons and nobody else knows that she lives in a big penthouse or that she’s loaded.

Maybe it’s that the boss doesn’t care. He doesn’t even glance at her swanky place or expensive decor. And she’s nice when she comes over – our place is alright, but it’s got scars from Wild Streak’s tantrums and most of our stuff is second or third hand. Charles and I do our best to keep it nice, but we don’t bother with a bunch of decorations that are just gonna get broke.

He doesn’t care about her legs either. She’s too young to have been in the War, but she’s missing both legs. Missing parts and other problems are common enough, but there’s always the people that tend to still treat disabled people a little different. The boss doesn’t care. And she’s never said anything about his eye or skin. He doesn’t try to scare or creep her out either, doesn’t do his usual power plays.

The only thing Magpie and Wild Streak care about is locks – everything from tiny little padlocks to great big safes. Picking them, hacking them, exploits, work arounds, and, if necessary, breaking them. And they’ll compete with each other – and if you know Wild Streak, you know he hates losing. But with Magpie, he’ll just laugh and have her show her or make another bet or whatever. They trade stories, without the type of oneupmanship you see with big shots. He’s even given her things – he’ll make his own picks or turning tools and it’s one of the few times he’ll sit still and work hard on something. About the only other time is when he’s taking care of his clothes. And if he makes something new, he’ll give her one to try out. She does the same, but she seems to buy a lot more of hers.

They sit and race to get through a pile of locks or one of them will have something that just came out or that is rare or especially hard to get open. The boss can practically whisper at one to get it open some days and other days struggle with it for half an hour, but Magpie is consistent. Fast, with those nimble strong fingers of hers.

I don’t know how they met or if there’s anything to their relationship but locks, but damn I’m glad the boss has a friend.

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The White Knight #1 – Devotion

Content warnings for talk of police corruption, references to military service, chronic illness, hospitals, shooting (nothing graphic), blood and medical issues, prejudice against fictional people, talk of gangs, non-graphic violence, mentions of drug and alcohol addiction, misgendering (in the context of someone assuming the gender where it’s not known), mention of spiders and rats, smoking, and swearing.

Many thanks to LB Lee and KristyCat for sensitivity and beta-reading. Any mistakes are my own.

Please let me know if you see any typos or other mistakes. Thanks.

Shard City doesn’t love anybody, but I can’t help loving it. It has its bright spots but unless you stay in those small oases it turns into a very ugly place at night, The cops hardly try anymore – too many crimes, too many gangs. It’s funny how you get used to it. Used to watching out for the sun setting, for the alleys like open mouths, for the people with gleaming eyes and hidden weapons. I’m sick of it. And I mean to do something about it.

My name is Delia Tyelu. I’m the White Knight.

 

* * *

A family photo - a tall white, blond man in doing bunny ears to a shorter, chubbier white, blonde man, who is holding the hand of a short Asian woman. She has her arm around her teenage kid who has his arm around her shoulders.
Left to right: Leonard Burton, Nathan Burton, Delia Tyelu, and Joel Tyelu-Burton. Picture taken on Joel’s 19th birthday.

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Two Times Delia Learned About Gender

This is part of a longer piece (6 times Delia learned about gender, and one time she didn’t), but the other bits mostly kinda suck right now, so I gotta rewrite them. This does reference those a bit, but uhhh, you’re gonna have to guess from context, I guess.

CN: mention of snakes in a metaphor, gender feels, mild misgendering-ish. Yes, this is a happy piece. Reminder, Delia is Zanchese-Anitian, which is pretty much equivalent to Chinese-American, and speaks Ie, which is a conlang of mine (that I need to work on more…). Please let me know if I screwed up. Nathan is her husband.

There’s some more notes at the bottom.

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Shard-verse Rambling about multiplicity

I swear I’m going to start actually drawing the comic, but I keep getting distracted by my conlang.

I know I have at least a couple multiples who read my tumblr, so if you want to comment / critique / offer suggestions, I’d appreciate it.

I’ve been a bit annoyed because I have two multiple-ish systems [1. I say multiple-ish because in-universe they’re questionable. Swordcat doesn’t really have two people in one body – one has a body of its own, it’s just that that body is a sword so it also uses Swordcat’s. Because swords don’t have, like, legs. The other is Iosis/Ostanes who are questionable because they split themselves with magic alchemy.]  who are both villians / antagonists. [2. If Iosis/Ostanes were the protagonists, they could be anti-heroes, because although they kill people and stuff, they’re doing it for a good reason and they don’t do it indiscriminately.] Which sucks, because that’s about the only exposure people get to multiples/pluralities.

I had already planned on having Delia’s admin assistant at Future-Tech be multiple, but that’s just one (and I want to change their system name) and I don’t know how often they’ll show up. BUT. I’m going to make Delia’s cook (Jane Quigley is the legal name) also multiple – and they helped the other guys get the job at Future-Tech (both groups belong to a multiple like club/support group thingy in or around Shard City). I gotta figure out how exactly that’ll work and work it into the story asap (Swordcat first appears in issue #5). Jane first shows up in the story after that.

I kinda want to keep things simple for the first few issues – keep the Burton’s to Delia and Joel, with her brother-in-law showing up briefly as support / someone to elicit some info-dumping. But I may switch those two stories around, because I’d rather some civilian / good guy systems show up before a criminal one. [3. Iosis/Ostanes won’t get published for years still, so Swordcat should be the only problem for a while. And neither of them are really terrible people – Leon is kinda sweet actually  – but they’re still in prison and stuff, so…] And I still need to figure out who the people in the Quigley system are.

Darn me and my attempts to be a responsible writer.

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Shard-verse diversity – the Flock

Input welcomed to make stuff more realistic or to point out stuff I missed, especially from people who are multiple. (I am not)

Delia’s admin assistant is multiple (in-universe there’s something called Multiple Consciousness Condition – it’s NOT a disorder or disease. Multiples who need help get something similar to family therapy to work together and communicate better). (I’m specifically working on getting a ‘normal’ multiple in there because I have a couple characters, Swordcat and Ostanes/Iosis that are artificially multiple.) (Er, spoilers?)

(I’m going to say right here, anybody who’s going to try to say that multiplicity isn’t real or that it can’t be healthy or that people are doing it for attention or any other garbage like that can just shut up right now. I don’t want to hear it, I won’t approve comments along those lines, and, also, you’re wrong.)

The person who fronts the most at work is Irina. The body is female, 30-ish, and white. Over time Irina has grown to resemble the body more, although she’s still blonde while the body has dark hair. She’s non-binary and her in-world body is genderless. She showed up with a dozen others when the original was about 11, for no especial reason. (The home life was chaotic with lots of moving and family members in and out, but nothing horribly abusive). They faded / left for other worlds / died along with the original leaving Irina scrambling alone for several months. Irina took the legal name (was just ‘the pink girl’ – they were mostly named after colors by the original). She has anxiety and depression. She’s got a bit of a short temper which she tries to control. She tries to polite and nice to everyone, but she’s stubborn and impulsive.

The next people to show up were the twins Kim and Viola Violet who showed up when the body was about 13.

Kim’s a little boy aged about seven. He’s got periwinkle-ish skin, violet eyes, and butterfly wings. He can’t walk, but floats. In meatspace he’s very clumsy and stumbles a lot. He likes boys and gets lots of crushes. He likes birds and dinosaurs and loves to birdwatch. He’s very forgetful and kind of selfish (like a little kid), but loyal to his friends.

Viola age slides between 12-ish and 25-ish. She’s got red eyes, red hair, and dark purple skin. She’s asexual, has depression, and light and noise sensitivities. Because of their chaotic life she overcompensates by trying to control everything. Kim helps her remember to lighten up. She’s got tons of survival skills, the most useful one lately being able to pick locks. She loves languages and is always learning new ones. She fronted for most of the body’s teenage years. She takes a long time to warm up to people.

They’ve had a large amount of headmates show up and then fade over the years. During their teenage years it was about one a month on average.

The last one to stick around is William Beck. He’s moody, a bit of a hoarder, and has anxiety and paranoia. He’s about ten years older than the body and ages with it. Walked in from another world about when the body was graduating high school, and their family was moving across country (they decided to run away not long after that). He likes opera and has a good voice. He’s very loyal and kind. He’s got an excellent memory in-world but loses time when not fronting or co-fronting so he makes lots of notes.

William can be co-present with anybody but when not co-fronting can’t talk it Kim or Viola. Viola can only be co-present with Kim or William and loses time when not fronting. Kim can co-front with anyone. Irina doesn’t lose time and can always talk to everybody. They’re all generally co-conscious but during times of stress the fronter will get locked in for up to months at a time, which everybody hates. Kim hardly ever fronts because he can’t fake being an adult well.

They’re estranged from their family because they couldn’t handle it. They’ve got overlapping groups of friends. Delia, their boss, knows they’re multiple as do all their friends (because it isn’t stigmatized except by very conservative people). It’s easier to let strangers and other random people think they’re a singlet.

Comments? Suggestions? Critique?

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