#Better than to just re-edit the form on a later time!

[nymphrasis]

Ramble

So I have told myself that, once I get Kuruna's blog running, is when I will join a server that was kindly mentioned to me ( One of the Pokeask servers. There was two mentioned to me, but to not overwhelm myself, I'll stick with one for the time being. If I feel comfortable enough to handle more in the future, I will join that one too! I say this because the reason I am not as active in some Discord servers is because I admittedly feel overwhelmed and kind of timid ;;w;;. I am use to managing a small chat here and there. )

Moreso because, in case I see a link to a blog section, I'd like to have that ready on the go without the need to edit the form >w</

I wont deny that I did got hooked into doing more shiny hunts ;;w;;. Legends Arceus shiny sound really does make me feel rewarded and happy hahaaaa

[ashilrak]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ♥️

I meant to do this the other day, but oop, here goes nothing:

HAUNT ME, THEN— (co-written with @mrthology)

Or, when Apollo cursed Kassandra before the Trojan War, it didn’t go as planned. Now, millennia later, Apollo and Kassandra are still stuck in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. Percy Jackson doesn’t know why people keep calling him Kassandra, or why he’s plagued by memories; all he knows is that he didn’t want to be a demigod.

There are a lot of reasons I have this as a favorite, but the biggest one is that this was a collaboration that has led to some big changes in my life and I couldn't be more grateful for it. It was also one I was just completely obsessed with while writing and took me through the emotional wringer, so bonus points.

The Murder Monologues (co-written with @theinevitablesense)

Stress came in many forms: work, pesky roommates, opinionated best friends, and attractive coworkers. Similarly, stress relief also came in many forms: knitting, music, cooking; Strangling people in their own homes. To each their own.

Bet you didn't think you'd see Hamilton on here lmao This is another collaboration and one that was genuinely so, so, so much fun to write. It is completely unlike anything else I've written, features a ship that doesn't really exist, and is such an off-the-wall AU. Like yes it's a Hamilton fic, but also. We played fast and loose with how criminal investigations work and talked about it like it was a comedy. We had a playlist that slapped featuring Razzle Dazzle from Chicago. If there's any fic of mine that could have its serial numbers filed off it's this one. Genuinely fun as shit and one I think about a lot.

See The Beast You Made Of Me

Percy Jackson thought he was done with prophecies, but the mist acting up means that it’s a revival or death. The Gods are calling for Rome to conquer and they want Percy to lead. Who better to shape their new Emperor than Apollo, already enlisted into Percy’s service for punishment? — Apollo grins down and leans in close enough that Percy can taste him. “I will make you greater than Augustus, more majestic than Hadrian, as clever as Marcus Aurelius," he says. Then with a flash of teeth, Apollo adds, "and as merciless as me.”

There are a lot of things with this fic I think I'd do differently now, and had I been the type to write in full and edit before posting I'm sure it'd look very different. But, I'm proud of this fic in the sense that it shows a lot of growth for me as a writer at this point. Obviously, I still have a lot of room to improve (and like to think I have since writing it), but it was a bit out of my comfort zone and I had a lot of fun pushing myself with it. Another one that's a bit off the wall, but sometimes that's the vibe.

Too Much To See Waiting In Front Of Me

Or: Paul takes Sally, Estelle, Percy, and Annabeth along on his family’s annual beach vacation

This is a simple one-shot, but it's one I love. I don't normally re-read my own writing, but this one I have. I don't know, it's cute and sweet and domestic and I like it.

Go On Shore (And It's Time For Us To Leave Her)

Or: Poseidon ventures west to see what's kept Ares so busy and finds a woman he can't get out of his head. Luckily for him, her time is for sale. Unluckily, Zeus is wary of any potential offspring and is sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. Sally and Poseidon both know how this ends; they can't help but fall anyway.

This might be another surprising one but, this is one of those ideas I just got really into. It's a historical Posally AU. I don't do much with Posally but boy is it something I love and have thoughts and feelings about. One of my majors in undergrad was history and I wrote a thesis on the economic and social pressures of prostitution in the Early American Republic which is where this idea came from. It was fun to jump back into that and bring in little tidbits while also playing with the idea of the Gods sticking their noses into the revolution and following years.

I've only included summaries to give a better impression of tone/vibes. If any catch your interest, please please please read ships, rating, tags, and warnings closely 🩷

[therentyoupay]

Hellooo! Sending this ask purely because I need someone to kick my butt into writing gear :'D but how do you manage writing without getting bogged down with self-doubt? My brain has the tendency to cripple my creativity and then I convince myself that the writing is trash. Even though no one but me is reading it at the moment.

HELLO LOVELY! ✨ i'm so sorry it's been so long since you sent this ask; i've been bogged down with academia but i promise i have been pondering your ask for these past three months now!!

honestly, this semester i'm relying on a lot of similar strategies for overcoming self-doubt in my dissertation writing process right now that i used to experience with my fanfiction (and still occasionally do, but it was a lot more prevalent in my teenage years and early 20s). regardless of the genre and context, i totally get how self-doubt can sneak in and mess with your writing and creativity and the enjoyment of the process. here are some things i do, which i'm sure lots of people have shared before, but it probably bears repeating!!

re: "trash": first of all, even trash is good. trash is SOMETHING. trash means creation and some form of use. seriously, even if you hate what you write at first, IT IS SOMETHING. remember it is generally easier to edit (even if you delete it all later) something than to create from scratch, especially if a long time has passed and you've built up the task in your head. i say let yourself write without judgment for a set period (like 10-15 minutes). don’t worry about grammar, structure, or quality. just get out your thoughts in whatever stream of consciousness makes sense to you and bypass your inner critic. this is a skill that needs to be developed and honed through practice. second, if you're bad at bypassing the inner critic at first, name it and tell it to shut up ("be quiet, reginald"), and carry on. repeat until it's actually easy, and then reginald doesn't even talk that much anymore.

separate writing and editing: on that note, write first, edit later. trying to do both at the same time can kill creativity. write freely, knowing you can refine and improve your work later. on that that note, you can always take a break from writing one thing to go write another thing and then come back to it when your head is more clear and your eyes have freshened!

set small goals: break your writing task into smaller, manageable goals. i like to set word count goals OR "write for X minutes" OR "write Y scene(s)" goals. i do this with both my dissertation and my fanfiction and my non-fic book writing, depending on the day, the deadlines, and the vibes. remember that small wins can build momentum and confidence. another thing i like to do to loosen up and get back into the swing of things via small-goal-setting is to post baby drabbles and micro-fic on tumblr!

positive self-talk: watch your inner dialogue. swap negative thoughts ("this is terrible/trash/whatever") with positive ones ("this is a draft, and it’ll get better with revision"). this is a skill!!!! practice it!!!! related: your writing may be a reflection of you in many ways, but it is not you; writing garbage on an off day does not mean that you are garbage or that your writing is always garbage. separate the skills, performance/product, and person. (and remember: garbage is still something, and you can edit it later.)

create a routine, if you can: this one doesn't quite always work for me, to be honest, due to the nature of my workday, BUT, when I'm able to do things consistently, i do like to set up a regular writing routine! consistency can help reduce anxiety and make writing feel like a natural part of your day. when i was in grad school (the first time) and working i used to write while on my commute, every day, on my phone; those of you who were with me in 2015 remember the prolific sorcery of that year. 😂

seek feedback: share your work with a trusted friend, beta reader, fellow writer, etc. sometimes you don't want to unleash your writing to the full internet right away, and that's totally fine and normal, but you still want constructive feedback. find a friend who will beta!!! they can reassure you and point out areas you might not have noticed. (and receiving and incorporating feedback is its own skill worthy of its own post, but i shall leave it for now!!)

CELEBRATE progress: i'm so serious, recognize and celebrate your progress, no matter how small. enjoy each kudos!!! each like!! each posted fic! each drabble!! each reblog!!! each bookmark!!!! reward yourself for reaching milestones (1 kudos, 10 kudos, 10,000 kudos, 1 comment, 200 comments, 1 hit, 5 hits, 500 hits, 1 story posted, 12 stories posted) to reinforce positive behavior. 😉 basic applied behavioral analysis and behaviorist psych!! (remember: positive self-talk, setting small goals)

visualize success: i do this one all the time for basically everything in my life lol (teaching, public speaking, finishing my dissertation, book tours for my non-fic books, winning awards, finishing fics). close your eyes, and picture yourself finishing your writing project successfully. how does it feel? what do you see? who is there? how does it smell? what are you wearing? where are you? what do you hear? visualization can boost motivation and reduce fear of failure and can give you all sorts of goody feel-good chemicals. your brain literally can't tell what's real or not real sometimes, so give it something tangible to make the task feel like it's literally in your reach (because it is 😉). this is, interestingly enough, also an incredible boost for writing itself, haha.

clean something first: maybe this is just me, but clean your desk beforehand. 😂 or go to a café or something. new fresh space. but don't let yourself get distracted by that either!!

read for inspiration: read works by authors you admire to get inspired and remind yourself why you love writing. 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

WRITE. WRITE WRITE WRITE. WRITE LIKE THE WIND MY LOVE.

[oxean-et-al]

A "brief" review of Submachine: Legacy

So, Submachine: Legacy was released yesterday, and I beat it about an hour ago, after just over nine hours of playing.

Review in brief: I liked it. It was good. It feels like a fitting send-off to the Submachine series (or this first phase of it, at least), though I won't go quite so far as to call it a "definitive edition" of the games.

Of course, there's more to my thoughts than that, hence the rest of this post. This review will be spoiler-free, though given the nature of the games there's not much to spoil. I'll also be assuming you have no idea what I'm talking about, so first, a quick history lesson.

The Submachine series is a series of (initially) Flash-based puzzle games produced by the Polish game developer and artist Mateusz Skutnik, consisting of 10 games in the 'main' series, released between 2005 and 2015, as well as 3 'spin-off' games, and one 'non-game experience,' for lack of a better term; this last item was also the final Submachine-related work to be released (or, in this case, finalized), being declared finished in December of 2017.

The first game, retroactively titled Submachine 1: The Basement, was, at its core, one of many 'escape the room'-style flash games, which abounded on sites like ArmorGames, Newgrounds, and Kongregate at the time.

However, as the series went on, the barest breadcrumbs of lore in the first game grew into a great web of narrative, held together by notes from multiple different (and sometimes unreliable) authors, and the games transitioned from being mere escape rooms into a unique form of puzzle game, held aloft by Skutnik's masterful hand-drawn environments, which benefit from his training as an architect.

I mean just look at that.

With the death of Flash, the availability of the games diminished greatly, available only through purchase on Skutnik's website, or via large collections such as Flashpoint Infinity. The 'non-game experience' I mentioned earlier, Submachine Universe, remained available through itch.io as well.

But now, nearly six years later, comes Submachine: Legacy, a remaster/re-release of all prior works in the Submachine series, available on Steam.

So, with all that preamble out of the way, my thoughts.

Submachine: Legacy is, ultimately, just the original Submachine games bundled together into one program, with some graphical updates here and there. But it's not merely the same games as before; there have been some changes and additions.

On the UI side, your cursor lights up when hovering over an interactable object, which makes looking for things much easier. The cursor also indicates where you can exit a room, and (in some cases) which item to use in a given context (hammer, karma water, etc.) That's a fairly simple change which I think makes the games much better, and more fun to play.

There are short sections linking the main games, or "chapters," which are quite nice. Also very nice are the detailed landscapes now viewable through some windows and telescopes.

There are a few changes I am slightly less enthused by, though. Submachine: Legacy, to my surprise, incorporates most (possibly all) of Submachine Universe; however, presumably due to reasons of copyright, the multiple user-submitted theories that festooned the walls of every room have been replaced by architectural sketches.

Likewise, some of the puzzles have been simplified. In some cases this is perhaps warranted, such as with the rotating wheels puzzle (I'm not really sure what to call it) near the end of Submachine 2: The Lighthouse. In other cases, however, I think it makes the series lose a small amount of its charm - I am specifically thinking of how the pieces of silverware that are used in some of the earlier games as makeshift wires, bridging broken electrical connections, have been replaced by new power relay items. These are both fairly minor changes, but they did disappoint me just the smallest amount.

The only changes that I had a distinctly negative impression of were in sound design. Specifically, both the 'item picked up' sound effect and (especially) the 'electrical connection made' sound effect went on for far too long, and, in the latter case, was rather overused.

It's for these reasons that I can't quite call Submachine: Legacy a 'definitive' edition of the games, though it does come close, and I would recommend it for newcomers to the series (the price, for reference, is $25)

Submachine: Legacy also has new content for the long-time Submachine player (which, let's face it, is likely to be most of the player base), involving over a dozen monoliths scattered throughout the games, and a genuinely brilliant new puzzle. For the sake of a spoiler free-review, I'll say no more, though do note that (I think) it is possible to accidentally reset the monoliths, so be cautious.

Submachine has been a major factor in my life, and this feels like a fitting send-off to (this part of) the series, and I eagerly await the next installment in the series.

[skzstoryvault]

Shattered Illusion (Hyunjin smut & fluff)

F!Reader x Hyunjin

Hyunjin is absolutely smitten with his wife, although the rest of the world doesn't see her the way he does.

This is in no way meant as a commentary on the real person Hyunjin. The persona he projects for us to enjoy is just so enticing and invites naughty fantasies.

This story is connected to a bigger story I am still writing and editing.

The "you" used here is not generic, I'm using it to allow myself some immersion on later re-reads. I know that's selfish but isn't all the writing advice telling us to write what we want to read? If you still find something in here to like, all the better - I hope you enjoy it and have a good time.

Please be kind.

Please do not report this post. If it's not your thing, just scroll away.

If you're underage, please scroll on, there is nothing for you here.

“I think we should drop a sex tape.” Hyunjin says in a low voice, right as he presses you higher and harder into the wet shower wall. He is leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses all over your neck, shoulders and chest, savouring how closely the two of you are joined and the way your heated, soft skins sliding against each other make it feel like the line where he ends and you begin is erased.

Moments later, he’s placing you back onto the shower floor and sliding down to his knees. 

“No!” You yelp, feeling his teeth dig into the soft tissue right under your chin. No scarf is going to cover that hickie. “I’m not sharing you with the world. Us fucking is all they ever think about anyway. Let them have their fantasies and die mad about them.”

“I just can’t stand them calling you all these names. You’re my wife, I chose you!” He pants out, growling to further drive his point home.

“Hyune… how about focusing on fucking me now, and plotting revenge against your few shitty fans later? I feel like we’re enjoying both things less if we combine them.” 

“Leg up.” He says, tapping one of your thighs and guiding it over his shoulder when you comply. “Ride my face.” He instructs, and it’s all you can think of doing when his nose rubs against your clit and his tongue snakes inside you, lapping up the mess he made. 

And, unlike many men, he doesn’t roll over and start snoring as soon as he’s come once. Getting off makes him chatty, and you get to hear an unfiltered reel of his thoughts as he cuddles you afterwards.

Instead of losing momentum the more he gets you to come, your body gets ever more eager to comply with his requests. Once he’s gotten you to this point of heightened stimulation, you’ll come just from him saying you should.

Sex with Hyunjin is usually a brain melting, loving, hot fusion. But sometimes he just chases more, and he needs to be further lost into you. Like today. He won’t stop until you’ve forgotten your name and all you can do is tremble in his arms, eyes unfocused and limbs pliable, letting him clean you up and tuck you in like his most beloved doll. 

“I want to slap every single one of these bastards.” He huffs, getting worked back up. “There are other idols they can move on to, if they hate it so much that I got married. And that you’re a woman! I’m sorry not sorry I don’t live my life to cater to their fantasies.”

The biggest problem, as you were made painfully and explicitly aware by the fansites and social media fan content about you, is not that Hyunjin got married, because everyone expected that. Everyone pictured him as a soft, perfect and aesthetic husband. But no one thought, in a million years, that Hyunjin would marry a woman. People looked at his stage persona and decided he is gayer than anyone who gayed before, and therefore he would remain publicly single and have a discreet relationship that fans could play detective about and project their speculations and fantasies on. 

It breaks your heart to see how easily the unending love turned directly to hate towards your softest boy. People love to shout tolerance and acceptance of all love forms, until it doesn’t match their ideas or politics. 

What no one besides Hyunjin, his mom and you know, is that he wasn’t planning to fall in love, he wasn’t even looking for a mate and he was bitter about marriage, given the examples he saw around him and the culture in his country around the concept.

But then he met you and all bets were off. You’re the same height and build - so similar in fact that you two wear each other’s clothes and shoes all the time, especially considering the fact that you were never the most feminine woman, unable to walk in heels and to wear thongs or to go for all the impossibly uncomfortable things that make a woman pass as a woman in the world.

In you, Hyunjin found a best friend, an ally, a twin mind and someone who loves him the way he needs to be loved. He fell in love gradually, but realised it in a stroke of clarity, not having seen that coming. When faced with his heart’s verdict, he had to admit that this was a case of “life is curly” and, the deeper within himself he looked, the more he knew for a fact that he did not care what packaging you came wrapped in.

This was something that upset many - they cannot, to this day, grasp how someone who’s been talking about boyfriends and posting erotic art of two men can go on and marry some Frau. People even go so far as to call him a coward, for allegedly remaining in the closet for the sake of superficial benefits of being publicly straight, and hate him for supposedly betraying every gay stan who made him their bias in Stray Kids.

That’s why the same fans calling you a horse and referring to you as “Miss Mann”, the name of a gruesome transphobic caricature character from a movie in the 2000s, does not bother you at all. You had resigned yourself to the thought that love would never cross your path. It was lonely and isolating being a tall girl in your home country, and it got worse in Korea. Men felt it was their duty to tell you they wouldn’t fuck you for all the money in the world because most of them felt threatened by you being taller than them and by the chance of you wearing heels on top of that. When it wasn’t the height, it was your lean, muscular body or your naturally white hair and icy blue eyes. Judging by how desperate idols were to dye their hair white and wear the lightest blue contacts, you’d think it was something to aspire to and covet. But it wasn’t as cool if it was natural, you supposed. So you minded your business and did your job. And then Hyunjin had stood in your office one day, along with the other members, and the rest was history.

There’s also the people who love to snicker thinly and point at pap pics of you and Hyunjin running errands, saying that Hyunjin did marry a man, he just doesn’t realise it yet. That kind of thing has you laughing maniacally like Skeletor, because this lot of people are just another variety in the big pool of folks who, instead of sleeping at night, stay up and think of you fucking Hyunjin. 

“Mmm, devilish. I love it.” Hyunjin puts his hands under his head, allowing himself to daydream. “I will ask Donatella to send me the smallest swim trunks she has in this year’s collection.”

Every doubt the haters sneak into your heart, Hyunjin undoes effortlessly by loving you with everything he is, every moment of every day. You had no idea any man could be this soft and loving. Your father was a man of actions, not words, and he was distant; his understanding of love was that of quiet sacrifice, and while you grew up safely thanks to him, you also learned that men don’t do emotions and are always stoic and reserved. It was not the most enticing picture to keep in your mind, so at some point, you let it go.

Hyunjin is funny, doesn’t take himself seriously, has no filter on his mouth and most importantly, he laughs with you, not at you. He never calls you things he can never take back, not even in the throes of passion. He never raises his voice at you. None of his facets have it in them to demean and humiliate you, not even for fleeting gratification in the moment, and he is extremely careful about not putting you on the spot in public, no matter if you’re on a red carpet or at the grocery store. He chooses you over the rest of the world, over and over and over again - not because he read in a book how to manipulate a woman into being loyal to him, but because he needs it for himself - needs to see you content and smiling happily at him.

You suspect he has a partial idea, if not a more in depth one, of the wounds you carry on the inside since you were small, and he must have sworn to himself not to add to them, but to do his best to help you heal them.

“But baby I want to make the fuckers lose their heads with powerless envy. They should know that you are mine and I am yours and they can never come between us.” He says, running a hand through your white, still damp from the shower hair. 

“Then how about an Acro Yoga video?” You suggest. “That shit is hot and challenging and it will trigger folks a lot more than something they can do at home in their stanky bedroom too.”

“Boo, those won’t help at all during acro yoga. They will go up your crack right away.”

“Don't care. I want people jerking off with one hand and crying with the other!”

“Hyune… that’s not-”

He doesn’t let you finish, pouncing on you and peppering your face with loud, enthusiastic kisses all over at once, like a smitten octopus.

“We are putting out a hot video. Hotter even than a sex tape.” He says in a singsong voice. “I’ll get to organising. And we can start choreographing the whole thing right away.” He adds, giddiness still audible in his voice.

[ohmeadows]

ooh for the ask game: 5 and 12 (for your ruanliu fic? i just love this fic so damn much, i need to know everything about it)

What fic surprised you with how much interaction it got this past year?

unsurprisingly, i was not at all prepared for the amount of interaction you and me are a twisted fantasy got, for better or worse. i wrote it for two people in about 48hrs and didn't think much else of it at the time. the tag enemies to milkies, added as a silly little joke, took on a life of its own for a while there.

(apparently i also wrote most of it while in the university library? just right there in public? ok.)

i got a lot of nice dms, some really icky ones, some people behaved really weirdly around me for quite some time, it wasn't the best introduction to a fandom but i went thru it and now i'm just writing what interests me. i haven't re-read it once since i posted it, so readers probably know it better than i do by now.

What inspired the dew of dying stars?

lots of little things, amongst them a throwaway thought at the end of september of "two frosty women mmm kiss". that was it. and then i wanted to know, well, how could i make that work? under what circumstances could their paths cross? it wasn't as hard as i thought it'd be. ruan mei's writing in simuni was honestly stellar, precise and interesting: did you know she has a manual for dealing with people? that was probably the first hook: what would jingliu had given to have a manual for how to connect with and live with others? with baiheng?

a common theory before ruan mei's full lore was revealed was that she was from the xianzhou cangcheng due to her association with plum blossoms and xianzhou-like style; and though her lore hints at another planet I still like to think she at the very least spent some formative time there. this also served as an exploration point of shared trauma, what it did to them, what those plum blossoms growing out of jingliu means to them both... though now that we know ruan mei nurtured a planet it'd be interesting to see someone do ruanliu au where ruan mei reveals she nurtured the planet that devoured the cangcheng.

ever since reading jeff vandermeer's 2014 novel Annihilation (and later, watching the alex garland movie version) i have been obsessed with the potential of floral and plant body horror, but struggling to find an outlet for those ideas. instead, i let them fester for years until hsr introduced mara: an entire civilization blessed/cursed with the looming disaster of what awaits them as they grow older. delicious.

during the fall of 2023, some friends were reading a lover's discourse: fragments by barthes and sharing quotes and reflections on the daily, which informed the inclusion of baiheng's presence; I find it nigh impossible to write about jingliu without at least brushing against baiheng and the wound she represents in jingliu's psyche.

these two points served as the strongest sources of inspiration, while for ruan mei, i ended up doing a lot of research into plant biology and systematics, as well as slowly and patiently layering an extrapolation who she was from simuni lore available to us at the time. in the end, i only had to do minimal edits as her lore was revealed, which is honestly a credit to hsr's thorough writing in simuni. i spent a lot of weekends in the library flipping through plant books to gather vocabulary and further extrapolate on it.

[chronotsr]

Pre-G1 Modules, part 5 - The Tower of Zenopus

So you probably noticed that this is being posted after G1. Sorry! File this in July 1977, so just after DK1 and 2 and Tsojconth and City-State and Tegel Manor but before Thieves of Badabaskor et c.

This post being released out of order is a function of where Zenopus is hiding. You see, the dating of Holmes Basic is a little squirrely. Most places say 1977 broadly, some people will say "the earliest reference is an ad in Dungeon in September '77", and a few internet sleuths say July 11th . So I hadn't had that down in my to-review list before I released G1, and in the rush I had forgotten that hiding in the back of Holmes Basic is the beloved little module simply entitled "Sample Dungeon", later known as The Tower of Zenopus.

And, consequently, I have no fancy cover to show you! Just this hand-drawn little map:

The Tower is unique in that it is the first module on this list that I have actually run for a real party. Now, granted, I did not run the Tower in Holmes Basic (I ran it in Fantasy AGE 2nd edition), but nonetheless -- it's the first one I have personal knowledge of. And I love it quite a bit.

So historywise Holmes Basic has a lot going on that I cannot quickly explain, so simply accept that Eric Holmes offered and was eventually hired to re-edit Original Dungeons and Dragons ("Little Brown Booklets") into a less labyrinthine mess. This was an extremely good call, and the Basic productline would go on to live for a very very long time in one form or another, only getting seriously changed much later by Frank Mentzer in 1983. There is a lot of Corporate Politics wrapped up in the release of ADND vs Basic vs Original DND, with concerns about copyrights and royalties and extremely Type A Gary Gygax not wanting to share his toys with the others. And, done.

The Tower is interesting from a historical standpoint in that whereas The Tower of the Frog is "here is a dungeon, here is what that looks like", Tower of Zenopus is "here is how to make a dungeon, and this is a dungeon that will teach players how to play". There will be far better attempts at those two goals, but nonetheless Tower represents a module that genuinely holds up in 2024 with some cleanup. It was given a loving nod in 5e's Ghosts of Saltmarsh by having the neighboring Portown be a little up the coast from Saltmarsh and I strongly recommend having that be your second adventure after the haunted house.

So, what's Tower's backstory? Both more and less than you'd expect. Zenopus built the tower next to the graveyard, it was suddenly engulfed in green flame, Zenopus was killed "by some powerful force he had unleashe din the depths of the tower", and it sat around for a bit. The villagers saw spooky shit going on there and smashed it with a catapult. Your party has assembled in the Green Dragon Inn and is going to investigate for phat lewt. Go on, scamp!

The structure of the tower is unusually genius for an early module, in that it features a lot of routing loops that allow for nonlinear but clear movement through the dungeon. The overall structure is, ultimately, a rimmed wheel, an outer ring connected by spokes to the hub. The shape hides this well but not too well, which is perfect for the new DM. So here's the room by room highlights:

The party enters on a four-way intersection, each taking you to a different feature of the dungeon. I have heard this dungeon describes as "like a theme park with four wings" and that's an apt descriptor here -- you're picking between the rat area, the pirates area, the wizard area, and the tomb area.

A very cute and simple puzzle, which is one of those most precious things in life: a four-way room freely opens from the outside, but only lets you out from one door. A statue in the center points towards the door that is currently open, and the statue can be spun to change the door. It's a neat little trick in that if the party gets separated during combat, anyone in this room can't assist anymore unless they work out the trap, but outside of combat it is largely a non-issue so long as they take the time to puzzle it out.

A pretty standard but new for the time tell that the wizard has a petrification wand with a little garden of stony adventurers. It's a classic for a reason.

A regulation water-rush trap that separates the party with the current -- again, a certified classic, creating tension by making fair encounters that are hard if the players get separated by traps

Ye olde "question answering mask" with, again, a precious simple puzzle: a tiny little riddle. If you parse out that the mask is powered by the sundial, you can abuse your light sources to make it be 4pm.

G i a n t c r a b, the most classic of scary "normal monsters", because it is armored and hits hard but people still immediately understand "oh fuck it's a crab" in the way they understand a bear is a serious issue

Giant spiders ambush from the ceiling silently. Zenopus really is a classics fest, but in 2024 that's kind of novel simply because THIS type of classic isn't done anymore.

For reasons I cannot fathom, the local pirates have taken to smuggling in the Tower because it's connected to the sea. This works in Ghosts because Portown is abandoned and so it's far away, but as-mentioned in the original module the tower has to be suuuuper far away from town, but also near enough to be the graveyard, for it to be a good smuggler's den. Regardless, there's a canned setpiece in the sea access room where pirates are coming on boats with a kidnapped noble lady from Portown. They're moving in on skiffs when, a giant octopus attacks! It's very, very good. This is, for my money, the best room in the dungeon and also one of the best moments in DND until we get all the way to N1's tavern.

In the center of the dungeon is a staircase leading up into the remains of the tower -- I made a rather major change from the original here, the original is merely an old alchemist's laboratory complete with a pet ape.

Instead of the alchemy lab, for my adventure I made a rather large change: the original module suggests expanding downwards because That Is How It Was Done in 1974. Instead, I went up. The horrible thing Zenopus discovered had formed a shadowy parallel dimension, so they were in a pocket dimension where the old tower was, even though in the prime material plane it was simply rubble. This blog is not About My Modifications but, that's my free tip about the tower if you ever run it -- subvert the old timey expectations by making it an upward dungeon instead of a downward dungeon, with the power of weird magic.

Anyway, that was all, and amends are now made for my previous error. See you in checks notes like 5 hours with G2!

[khoicesbyk]

The Royal Romance.

Forevermore.

A/N: this is the next chapter in the journey of my OTP. Follow along for the fun.

Rated: Mature (at times can and will be Explicit. I'll be sure to change the rating when and if that happens). | Contains sexual content and strong language. (You know? The usual. Y'all should be used to this from me by now 😁) | Bolded and/or italicized words are conversations and thoughts of the characters. | Main Characters: King Marquise Rys (LI) and Queen Shanelle Miller-Rys (MC) | All Characters and names: (except MC and original characters created by me and/or other authors [their characters have been mentioned and/or used in the story with their permission] ) are property of Pixelberry.

Current Word Count: 5,540 words. (may be slightly more or may be slightly less. Look, I stop counting after editing and re-editing and driving myself insane. 🤷🏾‍♀️)

If you’d like to be added to my tag list. Just reblog or DM me and I will gladly add you! 😁😘

This series is rated Mature and/or Explicit. It is NOT reading material that is safe for those under 18. Reader discretion is STRONGLY advised!

Missing a chapter or want to read a chapter again? I got you covered! Click ——> Here!

Tag List: @choicesficwriterscreations 

Chapter 3.) Ties That Bind.

It had been a few days since Shanelle called her father to let him know that his brother had a stroke and was in a coma. It was news Damien took in stride but Her Majesty could tell her father was heartbroken. When the press release went out about the ailing former King some in the kingdom were sad for him but others not so much. None more than Her Majesty. But protocol dictated that she showed some form of compassion even if she didn't want to. 

She met her parents at the residence of the palace. 

“Hi Daddy,” she said as she hugged her father. 

“Hello, my darling,” he replied. 

She was happy to see her parents. She then hugged her mother. 

“It's good to see you butterfly.”

“It's good to see you too, Madam Minister.”

Shantel snickered just as Marquise and the children came around the corner. 

“Grammy! Pop Pop!” Khari said as she ran up to her grandparents. 

Damien opened his arms to her and her brothers. 

“Hello, my sunshine! Hello boys! How are you?” he said as he embraced them. 

“We're good Pop Pop. Mommy told me that your brother is sick.” Khari replied. 

Damien smiled softly. 

“Yes, he is. But his doctors will help to make him better.”

Khari nodded. 

“And we know you are sad. But we're here to cheer you up. Right boys?” Khari asked. 

Being with his grandchildren always made Damien’s heart swell. 

“Thank you my little ones. Your love can heal anything.”

Damien watched as Khari and the boys toddled over to Shantel. 

“My sweet babies! Grammy missed you.” 

Later that evening after spending family time, Damien found himself sharing a drink with his son-in-law. 

“Since it's just us Damien, how are you, really?” Marquise asked. 

Damien took a contemplative sip of his drink. 

“To be honest I'm not even sure. I am sad for my brother but I also know he made a lot of enemies in his time as King. So part of me feels like this may be his karma coming back to get him but still.” Damien replies. 

“He's your brother?” Marquise asks. 

Damien nodded. 

“Yes. I know why you and my daughter can't stand him and I understand that. I understand why you two would never allow him anywhere near the children. But despite all of that he is still family.”

“You've certainly gone to great lengths to stick your neck out for him.”

Damien shook his head. 

“I know. It's part of the promise that I made to my father before he died.”

“What promise was that?” Marquise asked. 

Damien sighed into his drink. 

“I promised my father that I would always be loyal to my brother. That I would always be here to help guide him. Because he would always need me to be by his side.” Damien replies. 

“Even though he's never done the same for you?” Marquise asks. 

“Yes. Even then. Loyalty and family make strange bedfellows. I would think you'd know what it's like to have an older brother on the trajectory to be a King.” Damien replies. 

Marquise nodded. 

“True. The only difference is mine has never turned on me the way yours has always taken every chance to turn on you.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Damien said with a sigh as he finished his drink. “I guess what you could say bothers me the most is that for the first time in years, I'll actually see him looking and being vulnerable. You know as well as anyone that vulnerability is dangerous.”

“This is true. But you have to remember Edward is no longer a King.”

Damien shook his head as he poured himself another drink. 

“That doesn't mean his enemies have forgotten his time as one.” 

“You said this would be the first time that you've seen him be this vulnerable in years. What do you mean by that?” 

Damien took a thoughtful sip of his drink. 

“When we were children, he had to have his tonsils removed.”

“Only his tonsils? You sure they didn't take his spine too?” Marquise asks. 

Damien chuckled softly. 

“Anyway, for the two weeks following that surgery, he was pitiful. Mad that he couldn't eat what he wanted.”

“I'm almost scared to ask this but what was that?” Marquise asked. 

“Our cook at the time, Lemmy, used to make the best brownies in the world. Edward adored them. So I would sneak him a brownie and a glass of warm milk every night before bed.” Damien replied. 

Damien sighed. 

“We weren't always awkwardly estranged, you know. There was a point in our lives when we were brothers and not just King and servant. We used to be inseparable as children. Always doing everything together.”

“What happened?” Marquise asks. 

“He remembered that although we are brothers, he is and was always meant to be the heir. Once he started taking his governance lessons and sitting in on political meetings with my father, he slowly changed. He got a taste of what true power was like and it shifted his mindset. It changed him. And he's never been the same since.” Damien replies. 

Marquise nodded. 

“I see.”

“That was always my fear of Shanelle taking the throne.”

“What? That she’d become power-hungry?” Marquise asked. 

“Yes. I sometimes feared that she'd forget who she really is. You know better than anyone how hard it is to bring peace and to govern. You also know how alluring that power is and how corruptive it can be. She's not a corrupt dictator like my brother and your father turned out to be. She actually cares about the people and their needs as well as the overall well-being of the kingdom. As do you. Yes, she's gotten used to having the absolute finest and most luxurious things in life, but that's because she's earned that life.” Damien replied. 

“That is something I can assure you that you never have to worry about. If there's one thing my wife has never forgotten it's her humanity. She knows who she is and where she came from. And she teaches that to our children every day. She has never forgotten how precarious her position as Queen is.”

Damien nodded. 

“I know. And please don't think that I doubt her abilities as a leader or yours for that matter. I just know what that much power can do to someone.”

Marquise nodded. 

“I understand.”

Damien nodded at him gratefully. 

“I'm glad you understand,” Damien said as he finished his drink, “thank you for the drink son. But I think it's time I get to bed. We are traveling to Cloutier tomorrow.”

“Good luck tomorrow Damien. I know that it won't be easy for you.” Marquise said as he held out his hand. 

“Thank you, son. I appreciate it,” Damien replied as he shook Marquise’s hand. “I'll see you in the morning, Your Majesty.”

“Goodnight Your Highness.”

The two men nodded to each other before going their separate ways for the night. The next morning with the children staying with Marquise, Shanelle and her parents made the trip to the former capital city of South Cordonia. As they rode to Cloutier Shanelle peered over to her father and could tell something was on his mind. 

“Are you okay Daddy?” She asked as she squeezed his left hand. 

That seemed to snap Damien out of his trance. 

“Yes, my darling I’m okay. I guess.” He replies. 

“What’s wrong dear?” Shantel asked her husband. 

Damien sighed heavily. 

“I guess this reminds me of the last time I was truly home,” Damien replies. 

Shantel laid her head on his shoulder. 

“You mean when we came here the day before your parents died?” Shantel asks. 

“Yes.” He replied quietly. 

Damien shook his head sadly before looking at his daughter. 

“You were just a baby when they died. You were just barely older than the boys are now. But the love they had for you was always so strong. Father adored you and mother…God she doted over you when we brought you here for the first time. Whatever you wanted she made sure you had it. I guess that's one of the reasons why Edward has always resented me.”

Shanelle smiled softly. 

“I guess this trip is bringing up feelings I thought were long buried. That's all. I don't want you two to worry about me.” 

“Too late honey. We’ll always worry about you.”

Shanelle smiled at her dad. 

“What mom said.” 

Damien smiled. 

“Thank you both.” 

The three spent the rest of the ride in companionable silence. Gazing out at the countryside. Seeing many getting ready for the upcoming Harvest Ball and Festival. As they rode down into the palace motorway, Damien took a deep breath. 

“Well here we are,” he said quietly. 

“It's okay Daddy. We’ll be right by your side.” Shanelle said reassuringly. 

“Thank you my darling. Having my two favorite girls with me makes this a whole lot easier.” 

The three exited the limo and headed to the entrance where they were greeted by Prince Edwin and someone from Damien’s past. 

“Good morning Your Majesty, Your Highness, Your Grace. Welcome to the palace.” Edwin said in greeting. 

“Good morning cousin. Thank you for welcoming us.” Shanelle replies. 

Edwin nods politely. 

“You're welcome, Your Majesty. Now please let me introduce you to my aunt Countess Alicia Jacquier-Barbaroux, my mother's lead ladies' maid and head of the palace staff here.”

Shanelle nodded politely to the woman. 

“It's good to meet you, Countess.” 

“It's good to meet you as well, Your Majesty.” the Countess replies before turning to Damien, “Your Highness. It's good to see you again.”

“Hello Countess, thank you for having us,” Damien replied, taking Shantel’s arm in his.

“Us?” she asks somewhat perplexed before regaining herself, “Ahh yes. Shantel is it? It's good that you’re here too.”

Shantel forces a smile. 

“Countess, my mother is a Duchess and is to be addressed as Your Grace.” Shanelle corrected her. 

Countess Alicia nodded politely. 

“My apologies, Your Majesty. It's good to have you here…Your Grace.”

“Thank you for having us Countess,” Shantel says coolly. 

Countess nods demurely before Edwin clears his throat. 

“Shall we go inside now?” Edwin asks. 

“Yes. Let's.” Shanelle replies. 

Edwin took his aunt’s arm and led Shanelle and her parents inside. As they walked behind their hosts Shanelle glanced over to her mother and read the tight expression on her face. 

“Mom, are you okay?” Shanelle asks. 

“Yes, baby I'm fine,” Shantel replied tightly. 

Shanelle looked at her father. 

“Daddy?” she asks. 

Damien sighed. 

“Let's just say, Countess Alicia and your mother do NOT get along,” he replies. 

“That's one way to put it,” Shantel muttered. 

“Do I need to have words with this woman?” Shanelle asks. 

“No baby. I'll be fine.” Shantel replied. 

Shanelle cleared her throat, catching her cousin's attention. 

“I'm surprised you’re here Edwin. I thought you weren't speaking to your father.”

Edwin stopped and then sighed heavily, rubbing his brow. 

“I’m not but because I am his eldest child, protocol dictates that I be here in his time of need. Same as you.” 

“And how are you doing? How is Pascal?” she asks. 

“Forgive me, Your Majesty but I'm not sure why you care,” he replied. 

“Because I know for a fact that you two have been together publicly since his divorce from Giana was finalized back in January. And because I actually want to see you be happy.”

Edwin looked at her and nodded slowly. 

“Thank you, Shanelle.”

“Whether you believe me or not, I wish you both the best. And so does my husband.”

“Thank you, cousin. I wasn't sure how you'd react.”

“Just because we've never really gotten along doesn't mean that I hate you. I genuinely want you to be happy.”

“I appreciate that.” he said before pausing momentarily, “If it's not too forward, I would like to extend you and His Majesty an invitation to our wedding next March.”

Shanelle nodded with a small smile. 

“We would be delighted to attend.”

“You would?” he asks. 

“Yes. Again I don't hate you. I would love to be there.” she replies. 

“Thank you. Now because of the divorce, Giana is barring their children from our wedding so I was hoping you'd allow the Princess and Princes to stand in as a flower girl and ring bearers on their behalf.”

“I'm sure my daughter would love that. I don’t know about my boys. I don't think they would understand the concept but I would love to see them walk down the aisle with their sister.” 

“Thank you, Shanelle. It means a lot to me that you and your family would attend and can you ask His Majesty if he wouldn't mind officiating,” he said to her.

“I most certainly can ask him.”

Edwin nodded gratefully before turning to Damien and Shantel, “I would love for you both to attend as well Uncle.”

Damien nodded gratefully. 

“Send us the invitation and your uncle and I will happily be there,” Shantel replies. 

Alicia rolled her eyes and Shantel caught it. 

“Is there something wrong Countess?” Shantel asks. 

“No no. Well…I'm just not sure why Edwin would invite you. I just thought this would be an intimate family affair.”

Damien sighed. 

“Not that you need to be reminded Alicia, but Shantel is my wife and Edwin’s aunt through marriage. She is no different than you.” 

“I was only kidding Damien.”

“Sure you were…” Shantel muttered. 

“Just so you know Countess, disrespecting my mother is the same as disrespecting me. And I will not tolerate being disrespected nor will I tolerate my mother being disrespected.” Shanelle warned the Countess. 

“Very well. I apologize…Duchess.” Countess Alicia said to Shantel. 

“Sure.” 

“Shall we continue?” Edwin asks before he continues down the main hall. 

Edwin led them to his father’s bed chamber. When they got to the door, they were greeted by two women. 

“Your Majesty, Your Highness, Your Grace, meet my cousins Lady Ariella Barbaroux-Lawrence and Lady Amina Barbaroux-Clauson,” Edwin said as he introduced them, “My ladies, please meet Her Majesty, and my aunt and uncle, Prince Damien and Duchess Shantel.”

Both ladies curtsied before joining their mother’s side giving Shantel the same side eye as their mother that Shanelle noticed. 

“Are you all ready?” Edwin asked. 

“Give us a moment, if you please,” Shanelle replies. 

Edwin nodded. 

“Of course Your Majesty.”

Shanelle pulled her parents into a nearby alcove. 

“Okay, what is going on here?” Shanelle asked her parents. 

Damien sighed. 

“Alicia was the one I was supposed to marry before I met your mother,” Damien replies. 

“Yeah, and the bitch has never let me live it down,” Shantel added. 

Shanelle groaned. 

“What is it with you Cordonians and marrying women you have no business marrying?” Shanelle teased. 

Her parents snickered. 

“The heart wants what it wants,” Damien replied. 

“Are you sure that the Countess won't be a problem?” Shanelle asked.

“Yes, my darling. Alicia has never forgiven me for marrying your mother but as you can clearly see I have never regretted my decision to marry the love of my life.” Damien replies. 

“It's also why Genevieve and I have never gotten along. To her and especially her step-sister, I've never been good enough for your father or his station.” Shantel added. 

“Jesus Christ!” Shanelle groaned. 

“We'll be fine, baby,” Shantel assured her daughter.

“Okay. Let's go see the rusty old windpipe Daddy calls a brother.” 

Damien snickered as he shook his head. Soon they rejoined Edwin outside the former King’s bedchamber door.

“Shall we?” Edwin asked. 

Shanelle nodded while Damien took a deep breath. 

Edwin opened the chamber door to reveal Edward lying in bed hooked up to an IV machine with Genevieve and a nurse by his side. Seeing Edward reminded Damien of what his father looked like in his final moments as he and his family walked in. 

“Father, Mother, you have guests.” Edwin informed his parents. 

When Edward looked up his face instantly soured. 

“What are you doing here in my palace?” he sneered at Shanelle. 

“Believe me I don't want to be here any more than you want me to be here. But since you decided to go off and have a stroke on me, I'm here. Also, you forget this is MY Palace. You stay here because I allow it.” Shanelle snapped at him. 

Edward turned his attention to Damien. 

“And what about you? What the hell are you doing here?” Edward asked Damien. 

Damien closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. 

“Last time I checked this was my home and you are my brother,” Damien replied. 

“Don't you dare get smart with me you simpleton!” Edward snapped at Damien. 

“Watch your mouth, Edward! Unless you want to foot the bill for your care yourself.” Shanelle warned him. 

“You can't do that!” Genevieve said to Shanelle. 

“You're right. I can't but my husband can and I will make sure that he does. I will not tolerate my father being disrespected. Especially by this pompous ass. So I suggest you tell your estranged husband to keep his trap shut.”

Genevieve narrowed her eyes at Shanelle before going back to tending to Edward. 

“Why are you even here Genevieve? I thought you filed for divorce.” Shanelle asked. 

“Yes well, Edward and I have reconciled. We are stronger together than we are apart.”

“You mean your stipend wasn't enough to finance your lifestyle,” Shantel quipped. 

Shanelle snickered. 

“I earned that stipend. Unlike you, Minister.” Genevieve sneered. 

“Minister? What are you talking about sister?” Alicia asked. 

“His Majesty has named her the new Education Minister. Not that someone like her deserves it.” Genevieve replies. 

“She certainly doesn't.”

Shantel rolled her eyes. 

“For the record, my mother has over 30 years of educational experience as an educator, she also has 2 MBAs, one in early childhood education and one in secondary education from NYU, and is working on her doctorate as we speak, as well as being the NYCPS Teachers Union president for nearly 25 years. Most of the nobles who were nominated before her had no prior experience in any form of education. It would do you both good to remember that. Thank you very much.” Shanelle snapped at them. 

Shantel nodded gratefully as Alicia rolled her eyes. 

“Very well. Apologies…Duchess.”

“Careful Alicia. Your envy is starting to show.”  Shantel warned her. 

“Can we do this somewhere else?” Damien asked. 

The two women glared at each other but backed down. That's when Damien finally walked over to his brother's bedside while his wife and daughter stayed close to the door. 

“You never did answer my question, little brother.” 

“What question is that?” Damien asks. 

“What are you doing here?” Edward replied. 

“I'm here because my older brother had a stroke. And whether he wants to hear or not I still care about him.” 

Edward scoffed. 

“I don't need your pity!” 

“And yet you have it anyway.”

“Well now that you've seen me, you and your family can leave.”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

“I said leave! I don't need you! I have never needed you! You were always the weakling that I had to carry for the sake of our parents. If it were up to me you would've been exiled the night they died!” 

That's when Damien snapped. 

“I have heard enough Edward! If you must know I'm here to remind you that you are no longer a King. Nor were you ever a God! You are just a man! You want to know why I'm really here? I'm here because whether you realize it or not, I am the only family that you have left!” Damien’s voice boomed, “Look at what all you've done in and with your life! The only reason Genevieve came back to you is because she's broke! Hell, even your own children want nothing to do with you because they are that ashamed of you! The only reason poor Edwin even is here is because of his duty to his father! The same as me!”

By the time Damien was done, Edward was stunned. It was the first time he had ever yelled at his brother. That's when a slow clap coming from the doorway broke out. 

“Well well well! Would you look at that? The coward finally found his spine. Never mind the fact that it only took you damn near our whole lives to do so.”

When everyone turned to the doorway in walked Shanelle’s Godfather and Damien’s best friend Commander Gaspard Devereaux. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Alicia asked. 

When Gaspard turned to her his face soured. 

“Oh, good Lord! What cesspool did they drag you out of? If you must know, I'm obviously not here looking for you. I'm here as a guest of the Queen.” Gaspard replies. 

“I did not invite you!” Genevieve said. 

“I wasn't talking about you, you bottom-feeding wretch!” 

Shantel snorted. 

“I'm talking about my goddaughter,” Gaspard said, gesturing to Shanelle. 

“How dare you insult my wife?!” Edward exclaimed. 

“How dare you insult my wife?!” Gaspard mocked. “Very easily actually. Especially since I am no longer under your command. That means I can insult her and this cheap two-timing golddigger she calls a step-sister all I want!”

Genevieve seethed. 

“Now speaking of my goddaughter, where is my little beauty? Ahh, there you are! And look at you! You are as beautiful as the day I met you, my dear.”

Shanelle snickered. 

“Thank you, Godfather. It's good to see you.” Shanelle said as she hugged him. 

“It's good to see you too, Your Majesty,” he said with a bow. 

When he looked over at Shantel he had a smirk on his face. 

“Well well! If it isn't the cause of my exile!” he teased. 

“Oh go to hell Gaspard!” Shantel hissed. 

“So prickly! You know you used to have a sense of humor when you were younger.” 

Shantel shook her head with a smile. 

“You're lucky I tolerate you.” Shantel said as she hugged him, “It's good to see you.” 

“It's good to be seen.” 

“How is Amelia?” Shantel asked. 

“Fantastic. Ready for Thanksgiving.” Gaspard replies. 

“Good. I can't wait to see her and everyone.”

When Gaspard got to Damien he had a look of smug pride on his face. 

“Well well, you finally did it, old friend. You finally found your voice after years of being the punching bag of the conniving snake you call a brother. Gone are the days of you having the voice of a meager little church mouse, and here to stay are the days of you having the voice of a bullhorn.” 

Edward gave Gaspard a venomous look. 

“Are you quite finished?” Edward asked. 

That's when Gaspard turned to Edward. 

“Of course not Your former Majesty. I have only just begun. How fitting that the once-great King of South Cordonia has been humbled by a stroke. Tis a shame that it didn't claim your tongue or your life for that matter.” Gaspard replies. 

Edward looked at him indignantly.

“You filthy God awful excuse of—” Edward’s words were cut off by a coughing fit. 

“That's it! I want all of you out! Alicia get them out of here now!” Genevieve demanded. 

“At once Your Majesty,” Alicia replied. 

“If I may Countess, I'd like to have rooms prepared for my wife and I, and the Commander,” Damien said to her. 

“With all due respect Your Highness, you have no jurisdiction here,” Alicia replies. 

“You're right, he doesn't. But as the owner of this palace, I do. And as head of the staff here, you are under my command. With that said, I want rooms prepared here for my parents and Godfather, immediately. Thank you.” Shanelle said to Alicia. 

Alicia stared at Shanelle before clearing her throat nervously.  

“Y-yes, Your Majesty. Right away.” 

“Thank you, Countess.” 

“Do not…make rooms…for these fools!” Edward Said through a coughing fit. 

“Big Brother you are in no position to make any demands. As I said earlier this is my home. The same as yours.”

“This is not your home! Not anymore!” Edward wheezed. 

“No thanks to you! But now that you no longer have any power, you can no longer ban me from my home. And you certainly have no power to keep me from the one thing I treasure most in this world!” Damien snapped at his brother. 

“And dare I ask what that is?” Edward asked. 

“Our parents’ final resting place,” Damien replies.

“You stay the hell away from there!” Edward sneered at Damien. 

“You're no longer a King, Edward. You have no power anymore. Once more you’re no longer my King. Which means you have no power over me!” Damien snapped at his brother, before walking out of Edward’s room. With Shanelle, Shantel, and Gaspard hot on his heels. 

Once outside, Damien walked a few steps to a large picture window overlooking his mother’s garden. The tension in his body left him, and his shoulders slumped as he took a shaky breath. 

“Daddy? Are you okay?” Shanelle asked quietly. 

“I shouldn't have yelled at him like that. Not when he's in such a fragile state.” Damien replied. 

“What?! Are you insane?!” Gaspard asked. 

“Gaspard,” Damien replies. 

“Don't you Gaspard me! You had every right to yell at that no-good bastard! He's done nothing but bully me and especially you our whole lives. In case you've forgotten, I hadn't been able to come home in decades because he exiled me to America! An exile mind you, that your daughter and son-in-law lifted. On top of granting me the death benefits of my father that your brother refused to pay after he died.” 

“I haven't forgotten Gaspard. I could never forget.”

Gaspard scoffed. 

“Gee, I can't tell.”

“Gaspard, that's enough! You’re not the only one he hurt.” Shantel said to him. 

Gaspard sighed. 

“I'm sorry my friend. I wasn't trying to take this out on you.” 

Damien smiled softly at his best friend. 

“I know you aren't.”

The two embraced. 

“It's really good to see you, old friend.”

“Likewise Gaspard.” 

Damien faced out at the garden before looking back at his daughter. 

“Come with me?” he asks her. 

“I would love to,” she replies. 

Shanelle slipped her hand into his before they, her mother and godfather walked out to Damien’s mother’s garden. They took time to walk amongst the rows of Queen Angelique’s favorite flowers. Being able to share this with his daughter, meant the world to Damien. They stopped when they got to a garden chair set that had seen better days. 

“Do you remember this?” Damien asked his daughter. 

She looked at the set trying to recall it. 

“No, I don't. I'm sorry,” she replies. 

“It was where we had high tea with your grandmother. She invited me and Mama to join you and her.” Shantel piped up. 

Shanelle looked back at the garden chair set. 

“I don't remember that.” 

Shantel smiled at the garden set. 

“It was a few days before your coronation. She had all the ladies of her court there. That's when she first introduced you to them.” 

Shanelle closed her eyes and nodded. Damien wrapped her in a loving hug. 

“Your grandmother was so proud and excited to show you off to the ladies of the court. She had found out she had a granddaughter and she was going to make sure the whole world knew about you.” Damien said softly to his daughter. 

Shanelle softly wiped the tears from her eyes. 

“I miss her. And Baba too.” Shanelle said quietly. 

“You are the reason, he became a better King in his final days. That is one thing I am most proud of.”

“But I didn't do anything.” 

Damien kissed his daughter on her forehead.

“You changed his life and his view on his kingdom. Because he knew his kingdom would one day be yours. You made him a better man and King. No one can say they did that but you.” 

Shanelle laid her head on her father’s shoulder and smiled softly. 

Later that night, after making sure her parents and Godfather were safe, comfortable, and situated in their guest rooms at the old Palace, Shanelle was back home in her husband’s arms enjoying a glass of wine. 

“Well, you've had quite the day.”

Shanelle sighed. 

“Tell me about it. I swear if murder wasn't illegal or at least severely frowned upon, I'd bomb that damn palace and everyone in it.” 

Marquise snorted. 

“Ever my charming and beautiful murderess.”

“Those imbeciles deserve it!” 

Marquise refilled his drink. 

“Anyway, tell me more about your cousin’s upcoming wedding.”

Shanelle smiled softly. 

“He invited us and my parents and I couldn't say no. And I meant it when I told him that I am happy for him and Pascal.”

Marquise nodded. 

“Did he say who was officiating?” he asks. 

“Yes. I wanted to know if you'd officiate their wedding,” she replies. 

“Me?” 

“You do have the power to officiate weddings, Sir.” 

“True.” he said before taking a sip of his drink, “So I guess I should dust off my Bible and grab my officiating tie. I have yet another wedding.” 

Shanelle rolled her eyes good-naturedly. 

“What else happened?” he asked. 

“We toured my grandmother’s garden and Daddy showed me where she had us have high tea with her,” she replied. 

“Tell me about that.”

Shanelle smiled wistfully. 

“It's beautiful. All of her favorite flowers are there. I felt like she was there with us. I would love to bring Khari. She would love it.”

“I'm sure she would. She loves flowers. She loves taking flowers from the maze and bringing them inside.”

“Part of me is happy we went.”

“You were happy to see your uncle?” 

“No, you dumbass. It was good to be back in the palace because, for the first time, it didn't feel like a dungeon.”

“I mean it is your Palace, my love. You are allowed to come and go there as you please. And the only reason Edward and his family have been able to stay there is because you didn't want to take the only home your cousins had ever known away from them.” 

“True.”

“And now that your cousins are grown and clearly on their own, you have the power to evict His former Majesty if you choose to.” 

“Did I mention that he and Genevieve have apparently reconciled?”

Marquise made a face. 

“Well, that just ruined the mood.”

“Tell me about it.”

Just then Shanelle’s phone buzzed. 

“You should get that,” Marquise suggested. 

“Hello?” Shanelle answered. 

It was her father who was frantic over the phone. 

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Daddy slow down! What happened?…Mom and Countess Alicia did WHAT?!”

Shanelle listened to her father and tried to calm him down. 

“Okay, Daddy calm down! Where is Mom? Is she okay?…Okay, you need to calm her down and tell Godfather to quit laughing!”

Shanelle listened again before she hung up the phone.

“What is it?” Marquise asked. 

“Do you know who Countess Alicia Jacquier-Barbaroux is?” she replied. 

“Yes. She’s Genevieve’s step-sister. What about her?” he asked. 

“She's also about to be a dead woman,” she replies. 

“What happened?” 

“She got into a fight with my mother. And lost.” 

Marquise let out a breath. 

“Yikes!”

“Exactly.”

“Is mom okay?”

“Yeah, she's fine. She's just royally pissed.”

“I don't blame her. Where is the Countess now?”

“All I know is my parents are on one side of the palace and she's on the other.”

Marquise nodded decisively. 

“I’ll have an arrest warrant issued for the Countess in the morning.”

“In the morning? Why not now?”

“Because doing it now would mean that I'd have to get up and walk all the way down the hall to my office. And I don't want to do that now that I'm in a comfortable spot.”

Shanelle rolled her eyes. 

“Fine. I do have a question though.”

“Yes?”

“Wouldn't issuing a warrant on my mom’s behalf be considered showing favoritism?”

“Your Mother is an active member of the Royal Family. So no it's not.”

“Why can't you get a judge to do it?”

“Because all the nobles answer to me, not to the judges.”

“Good. The sooner that bitch is arrested the better.” 

“It will be done, my Queen.”

“Good. I'll go back to the palace tomorrow to check up on Mom and make sure she's really okay.”

“Do you want some company?”

“No, not unless you want to hear Genevieve bitching at me at the top of her lungs.”

“Oh, how I thoroughly enjoy making that woman and her God-awful husband suffer.”

“And you have the nerve to call me a murderess.”

“You want to drop a literal bomb on her.”

“No, I don't.”

“Yes, you do. Not that I blame you. Whereas I want to take pleasure in watching her suffer. And thus why we are not the same.”

“Yeah yeah…” she muttered. 

“Don’t worry my love. All will be taken care of by this time tomorrow. You have my word on that.”

“I know. And besides Khari will have your head if it isn't.”

“Ugh! Did you have to remind me?”

Shanelle snickered as she snuggled with her husband. Because he was right. He would make extra sure that this matter is dealt with as swiftly and quietly as possible.

[badlydrawndavepeta]

Mod: Recap Blog

This BadlyDrawnDavepeta Recap covers the start of the blog on 9/19/2023 through 11/12/2023.

Highlights: that new blog smell, furries, fleas, detectives, and Halloween.

That New Blog Smell

Davepeta of the badly drawn variety came into existence. They proceeded to laze about in typical cat fashion, taking naps and drinking tea, before bragging about their status as a furry. They truly aspire to follow in the footsteps of the ultimate furry, Nyancat.

They celebrated several follower milestones, including the funny number and over 100 followers.

Controversy came up when Davepeta accused their followers of not getting laid, only to become the target of that same accusation. Truly, an exercise in putting out the energy you want to receive.

In entirely non-controversial moves, Davepeta confirmed their stance on Lord English, professed to murder crimes, and encouraged followers to be gay and do crimes. They also spent time suggesting that post-scratch Dave not only doesn't know how to drive, but also rides Maplehoof everywhere. No one has yet to argue with this assertion.

Davepeta showed off a lot, from cool weapons, including a sord^2 squared, their guns, and a really big sword, to their various skills in flying, swordship and teleporting, drawing, blind drawing, and reading comprehension. They also played Minecraft.

Davepeta indulged in some casual shipping before realizing that one of their ships got leaked. More importantly, the rumor mill also churned out the idea that Davepeta chirps at their reflection.

They reflected upon several topics, including Snoop Dogg, godtiers, really tall pants, angles, and more specifically triangles.

Davepeta also briefly got a mullet and an undercut.

Furry Friends and Family

Along the way, Davepeta met up with several friends, including fellow cat lovers, Fefetasprite and Meulin.

In an exclusive interview with Kanaya, Rose, and Jade, Davepeta leaked a sneak peek of SBAHJ Furry Edition: thinsgs just got furreal and exclusive premiere popcorn SBAHJ Furnanza buckets.

In a startling move, Davepeta briefly becomes a worm and is reaffirmed of MSPA Reader's love for them, even as a worm.

Davepeta goes catfishing with Eridan. Later, while Eridan was under the influence of being a cat person and high on catnip, they helped him through the munchies.

The Strilonde family has dinner at Rose's place. It goes about as well as expected. But at least there was really good pizza.

Davepeta also met another version of themself, which although seemingly paradoxical really is totally fine y'all I promise.

Erisolsprite came by just to nya with Davepeta. It was incredibly fun and now Erisolsprite is on record as calling Davepeta "pretty chiill"!

Davepeta Gets Fleas

Beginning a curious series of events, Davepeta was threatened with fleas. They initially responded in hostility, yet when confronted with the innocent life of a flea, they chose to instead invest in a flea circus. Davepeta gets accused of having fleas and cannot deny the allegations.

Growing closer, Davepeta defends their new flea friend from a dangerous shower, only to realize a much better strategy for keeping their friend safe from water via bath.

They embrace the flea lifestyle, only to come into contact with more fleas than they know what to do with. So of course they continue investing in their flea circus. There have been many interested parties, including folks interested in flea music.

Detective Davepeta

Among many badly drawn blogs, a mysterious trickster candy was passed around. Davepeta donned a detective hat and began questioning several people, including several Strilondes, as to the nature of this candy.

They narrowly avoided trickster mode after a close call with Meulin. Their trickster form is best left to speculation.

After putting together a bunch of clues, they eventually learned from Jade that an anonymous source gave John the trickster candy. John confirmed this in noir fashion.

They gained a sleuthing ally in MSPA Reader, who came through in bringing in evidence.

The mysteries began multiplying. Permanent tricksters started appearing and grim forces began influencing folks.

The Halloween Party

On Halloween, Davepeta received several treats, including Swedish Fish from MSPA Reader, assorted candy and a mouse toy from Erisolsprite, and a smuppet from some insufferable prick.

They originally dressed up first as one famous furry, GIR from Invader Zim, before pulling out their actual Halloween costume as a much scarier famous furry, Cat in the Hat from the Cat in the Hat 2003 movie. They accidentally scared Jaspers with how accurate their costume was.

They attended a fun party hosted by Nepeta and Sollux. Davepeta made a failed ashen pass at Eridan and Sollux and then filled Erisolsprite in on the relationship between the aforementioned trolls.

While noting the high rate of furries at the party, Davepeta gave Karkat a cat ear headband (thus propagating the furry agenda), accused Vriska of being a furry, and welcomed Jasprose to the party.

Davepeta also introduced Nepeta and Feferi to the terror that is the human mythological figure of Cat in the Hat. Unfortunately, they seemed not to understand the horror.

Davepeta entered the costume contest and produced propaganda for people to vote for them. Despite campaigning for scariest costume, they were beaten by a baby. But they did win funniest costume!

After the party ended, they promptly passed out.

[folklauerate]

hi! i’m a big fan of your work and admire so much how much writing you post. i feel like we’re always being graced by something new and wholly lovely. it’s a real gift and i’m so grateful that you share your work. i write fic too and often wish i worked a little faster. i’m wondering if you’d be willing to share about your process. do you have a writing schedule? what are your writing “philosophies” if you have any? is your writing pace something you’ve worked to grow as a skill, or is it something that feels like it comes more naturally to you? and if i’m being overly curious, just ignore me! i’m interested in other writers’ process but know these can potentially be big questions to ask out of nowhere. thanks!!

Hello!!!

First of all, I apologize for not answering this sooner. This is such a lovely ask and a lovely question. I attempted to get my thoughts organized, got super sick in the middle, fell a bit out of love with even writing fic, and am now back lol!

I will attempt to organize my thoughts a bit for this question, but I'm known to go off on tangents, so I apologize if something doesn't make sense. Feel free to send another ask/dm me/comment/etc for clarification or any follow-up questions :)

Right off the bat--thank you for your very kind words :,) and thank you for taking the time to read my fics! I appreciate you so much.

My process is a bit wonky. I have actually slowly and recently become aware that I don't work the way a lot of my writer friends do--in a myriad of ways. Like, my output is not necessarily normal; in some cases, I am way faster than some other fic writers in terms of putting out work, and in other cases, I'm suuuuuuuuper slow, as there are people who update a couple times a week and finish long-form fics in a handful of months.

I think it boils down to this--I started writing fic because I just wanted to read a certain kind of fic--so I wrote it. I just wrote it! I sat down and wrote exactly the words I wanted to read and then I hit publish and kept going. Anytime I got an AU idea that was particularly gripping, I would just sit and write it and that was it.

I don't outline 99% of the time. It is rare that I do and I usually hate when I do it because it ends up as a last ditch attempt to get all my ducks in a row for a story that is giving me trouble and then the outline becomes really restrictive for me and then writing becomes tedious. I think it's important to note that writing fic, for me, is a really creative thing that I try not to put pressure on myself for, and the way I write my original work is really different. With fic, I will just sit and write and hit publish and I'm lucky if I do a proof read lol. I will quite often catch typos MONTHS later. Lol. If I'm being patient, I'll sit and re-read and re-edit a fic over the course of a few weeks and it's always better and more fully formed and trimmed in the right places and (in my opinion) better when I do that, but the thing is, I really don't usually do that!

That gets to the next bit--writing philosophies. There's about a thousand schools of thought and they're all garbage. The only one that matters is the one that you come up with and that works for you. Now, that doesn't mean that your writing philosophy and approach to the craft has to be entirely independently thought up by you, no. It can and probably will be an amalgamation of your own ideas and other people's ideas that work for you! But it should be a bit of taking from other's here and there and finding what works for you.

Mine is sort of like this;

For me, writing fic is a lot of things, but at the core, it is about creativity, freedom, removal from a capitalist need to produce/creation for the sake of creation, and a place to push my own boundaries. I write super wild smut or crazy out there AUs just to push myself to see if I can write it. I write an AU I come up with while driving in the car just because it gripped me and I want to. I write super fast because the idea just grips me and I want to exorcise the demon inside me and vomit it all up on the page and feel better. I've found that if I stray from that and I write for another reason, I usually feel pretty crummy about it.

This, of course, means that I don't have a real schedule or strict deadlines for myself or anything. I just write for fun and that's it! I am sure it's probably frustrating as a reader and I am sorry 😭 tbh sometimes it's frustrating as a writer knowing I'd probably have greater readership if I was more consistent with updates and wrote on a schedule and stuff, but that's my own fault lol, I just follow the muse. That being said, right now, I remain committed to finishing all my WIPs. I don't have a timeline for that, but I do remain committed to it.

Of course, I don't know how much of this is helpful for you if you're looking to have more discipline in your practice, so here are some more practical steps to write consistently;

put aside time each day to write, even 30 mins a day is good

SPRINT!!! sprinting for 15 mins and giving myself an impossible word count to meet really pulls me out of a funk and pushes me to write

follow your muse where it takes you and write what feels fun

on the flip side, you have to sometimes be the grown up and force yourself to sit down and write the bits you might be dreading or putting off, and you just gotta do them! this is where sprinting comes in

Your last question; my pace really has just come naturally, it's not something I've worked on or worked towards. It's been a bit of a "oh I guess that's there" lol. Discovering my normal and discovering what I can reasonably expect from myself both length-wise and time-wise (in how long it takes for me to write something) has been hugely helpful in budgeting my time moving forward while writing and setting realistic goals and expectations for myself. There have been times I have pushed myself--like with Bridgerton, Actually, which I wrote updates for weekly--and times where I let myself have a chapter update with a low for me word count and remind myself it is fine lol. The pace is the pace and it just... happens! I will say that if you're looking to get faster, ask yourself why, and try to be realistic if the quality is going to grow along with the pace, or if it will suffer. There have been times where I've taken longer on an update, knowing full well I could just slap something down on a paper and hit update and not care, but I instead made myself work through things, even when I didn't want to, and take time with them, because I knew it would be worth it for the quality. Sometimes, however, I've sacrificed quality for timeliness (Bridgerton, Actually is an example of that; I still think it's a good fun holiday fic, but it's only about 33% as good and fleshed-out as I wanted it to be, but that's my own fault because I didn't start writing soon enough ahead of time, and I prioritized my update schedule over quality, and that was a concession I had to make my peace with!), and that's okay too, if that's what you know you're going to do going into something!

I think I answered all of your questions but feel free to let me know if you'd like me to expand on something :)) thanks for the question, it wasn't invasive at all! I love talking about the process <3

[your-local-uwu-artist]

its fitting its kirby day cause today my animation on youtube reached 1k views <3 i really dont have the words to describe how thankful i am~

anyhow some sketches i got and bits from my curretn wip video essay (im more then halfway through my initial draft!!!) the fic "being a knight is easy" by @/azzie_tangerine under the cut

anyway i wanna talk more about my process on my curretn wip, bassically to make iteasier on me i diecided to just do a re-read taking notes of litterally whatever comes to mind along the way, some of it is complete unrelated nonsense, some of it is just noting a specefic thing i liked, some are vague start ups for something to think more into, and others are more fledged out paragarpahs of anaylsysis, bassically i was just typing in the notes app but now im switching to google docs cause it keeps lagging sdafnksd anyway once i finihs the main first draft then ill start working on organizing everything and cutting out the side rambles, after its more organized i can work on more actual anaylsisi writing, decideding when an excerpt or quote is needed or not and actually making it a script, im not sure how many drafts ill have

anyway, heres the snippets ive found that are more comprehensive

"we've reveiewed hw the battles are written this one is very different as kriby is feeling confident now but there is a snippet of text in it i want to bring to attention

"Fluff said it was okay to be forgetful, it was a part of him. And sometimes, accepting something won’t work is better than trying to force it… right?"

i would like to note the word acceptance and the phrase "it was a part of him" sense are other protag has a part of him he needs to accept, its small and aubtle but it really neat how are 2 povs segments are so intertwined" (note on battle scene in chapter 15)

"okay also this part is very much a me thing but i really want to point it out because it would be a fun scene to adapt to a visual medium, probably animation rather than comic but i love a challenge but there's a scene or two where metaknight talks about knight stuff to kirby while they like, go through different stances, the point is it would be super fucking fun to adapt to animation, if i do ever adapt this fic as a comic or something than i do thing the dialogue of this scene would probably be one with more changes sense in a written medium this had more writing to like, start the scene where as in a visual format it would be more seamless for the act to have less words to start it and expand and shorten some parts of meta's dialogue to match with the comic flow, as word bubbles are very much a part of comic art" ( i didnt note what chapter it was form god damn im gonna have a lot of editing to do later)

"i think one thing this whole fic does really well BUT ESSPECIALLY helps scenes that need more tension in them is the variety in length of paragraphs, okay i really hate when people complain about fanfics without paragraph gaps cause like, i get it the writer is just tryin to get their ideas down and share them and honestly fuck it i know im in the minority here but ive always found that often these fanfics arent at all bad because i can feel that the author cares aout it and had an idea and all that, BUT.... i do think that paragraph gaps are a storytelling tool on their own. its like an extremely watered down version of panel layouts, emphasis on extremely watered down because panel layouts are a LOT like a LOT a LOT, so much more than some people realize but it has a similar effect in the sense that it impacts the sense of the passage of the time and it creates a sense of rhythm but most of all it can create emotion and communicate through the empty space" (on the first battle scene i think)

[rwbyworldofremnant]

Character Infodumps - Penny Polendina

Starting out with one of my personal favorite characters, let's talk about Penny Polendina.

Above right here, I've linked her character theme song.

Essentially, the song talks about how Penny meeting Ruby really changed her life for the better and helped her to see her self-worth.

In the second stanza of the song, it mentions how Penny wished upon stars each night, desperately hoping for "just one kind soul with a heart of gold" and then references how Ruby came along and changed everything.

Then, in the seventh stanza, the lines "You saw my soul through the nuts and bolts" and "You're the friend I can trust, helped me see I'm not just a machine" references how being friends with Ruby helped Penny to finally discover and see her own worth.

And, now for the lines that really melt my heart...

"Even if I can't live for real, it was worth it to know you"

"A chance to share the world to be a girl who finally felt alive"

"I been combat-ready since the day Dad made me now I'll fight for something more"

"I've got friends I'm fighting for"

"The warmth of a smile that stays for a while the face of a friend that won't leave"

"You'll never face this world alone I'll be right here, it's you and me"

Now, I wanna talk about something a little personal. It's related to me being autistic.

When I first watched RWBY in middle school, I really, really loved Penny's character and found her relatable, but I just couldn't describe why. Well, years later, I think I've figured it out.

I didn't find out for sure that I was autistic until around 9th or 10th grade, but when I started learning more about it everything started to make sense.

Like me, Penny had a hard time making friends. People thought that she was weird, and team RWBY was no exception. Of course, they did come around after a little bit, but when they first met her they seemed to have found her a little too enthusiastic.

I personally headcanon Penny as autistic, and I feel like she's the side of the spectrum that has a tendency to come off as "too passionate" or "too intense", which can sometimes scare people off. I think I might have a similar effect on people myself.

Also, her inability to recognize certain social things. I couldn't see it when I first watched RWBY as an ignorant middle schooler, but upon re-watching the series in it's entirety fairly recently, it was extremely evident to me. I guess I've learned to mask better/assimilate with neurotypical social stuff over the years? Or maybe the reason I picked up on it this time was because I was finally able to explain why and how I related to her? I'm hoping it was the latter.

I also want to take a moment to say a few things about Penny and her dad, Pietro.

I find it so beautifully tragic how he gave up permanent parts of his own aura - basically his own life force - to create and bring Penny back to life. It's very touching. Don't we all wish we had a dad like that?

And not just that, but let's take a second to think about how he actually treats her like a living being with thoughts and feelings. I think in most medias when somebody builds a robot or anything akin to that, even if it's fully capable of forming it's own opinions and such, it usually ends up getting treated like it's nothing more than an object meant to exist solely to perform a specific task. But, Pietro treats her with respect and care as if she'd really been born a human girl with flesh and blood, and I just find something about that to be so sweet.

Anyways, that's all I've got. Maybe one day I'll update/edit this post or make a new-and-improved version, but for now this is what I have to say about Penny.

Not sure if that many people will even see this, but if you did, hope you liked it and have a nice day! :3

[industrialisland]

writing process

Tagged by @red-sky-in-mourning

do you write in order?

man I wish. I usually start in order, at least. I write until I hit a block and then skip to a part that I feel more excited about, whatever it takes to keep myself writing. I’ve gotten up in the middle of the night to jot down some random collection of sentences that I might use later. Tying those scenes together later is definitely something I struggle with. This is why I don’t post fic til I’ve got it completed.

The nice thing about co-writing Home Sweet Home with my sister is that I’m forced to write with some structure- no skipping ahead, because what she writes is based off what I write, and vice-versa, and I have to be timely about it because she’s waiting on me. Being given an open-ended prompt is really helpful. Writing on my own gives me too many options and maybe too much leeway as far as getting it done timely.

how fully formed does your writing come out the first try?

Fairly. I’m a big reader and I’ve always had a good grasp on writing, and I edit as I go. And I like to re-read my work so I catch little errors and things that don’t make sense. My beta reader complains she has nothing to do, lol. I’d like to be good at outlines but I’m just not.

how many drafts do you go through?

I don’t write in drafts. Occasionally if a scene isn’t working/is too long/is sort of what I’m looking for but not quite, I’ll rewrite it, but I don’t rewrite the entire story. For example, in my original first draft of everything broken, Stede punches Ed in the face immediately upon arriving back on the Revenge. Changing that to a kiss meant a lot of softening of their interactions. There was a much longer interlude of Stede’s thought process in getting back to Ed that just wasn’t flowing, so I had to rewrite to keep the important bits and make everything more succinct. I also did some POV switching- originally the entire fic was from Ed’s POV, but making it switch back between both of their POVs rounded it out so much better.

tell me about your process.

I clear out time to write and I use Write or Die to set myself a word goal. Some days it’s just barely scraping by, other days I don’t even notice that the timer has stopped, the key is to make it a habit. I use Spotify to find some chill/focus music, no TV, especially not the source material because that gives me the creeps, like I’m perverting it somehow, lol. I have to be really excited about an idea to write, though, I always have this weird lingering embarrassment about starting a new fic for no real reason!

It takes me a long time, though. I’m in awe of the people who can write a novel length fic in less than a month. Both of my fics took me ~3 months each.

[freebroccoli]

I've found myself getting into a writing project recently. The content is private and meant for a particular audience, so I won't talk about that here, but I will post about the process.

I had this idea for a story, but it wasn't the sort of thing I wanted to write, so much as something I wanted written, so I could read it. I thought I'd try using ChatGPT, expecting it to be terrible.

And it was. At least in terms of the output I got when I said "write me a story about..." Besides the obvious AI voice, it's output was a lot shorter than I wanted. It also went way off the rails in terms of how it went from point A to B.

I tried again, this time creating a basic outline in my head and having it generate scene-by-scene. That resulted in a better directed story. It also meant I could re-write the prompt and generate a new answer, thus approaching the result I originally wanted.

That lasted up to the end of the first section of the story. It will take place over the course of three days, and I had a pretty solid idea of what the first day would look like, but after that it was a lot of blank space that had to lead up to the climax at the end of the third day.

So I just asked ChatGPT to give me some ideas. It did, and while a few of them were good, most were not. But that turned out to be okay, because hearing a bunch of options that I didn't like clarified what I wanted out of the story and it prompted me to come up with better ideas.

I think part of it is my creativity, especially in writing, works best in conversation. Even when the other side is a chatbot, the act of writing it as if I'm telling another person and having the ideas bounce back at me keeps things moving in a way that writing notes to myself doesn't.

Anyway, I ended up filling out an outline for the rest of the story. Now that ChatGPT had the full context, I went back to the beginning and started regenerating scenes, with the expectation that I would just copy the outputs and paste them into a document for form the story. It didn't end up being as automatic as I was expecting, but I ended up falling into a flow where I would edit my prompts and regenerate to get things as close as I could, then do some editing myself.

As I get further into the story, it ends up being more of what I write and less of what the chatbot writes, but I am still using chunks of specific wording. The visual arts analogue would be photobashing to plan out a piece, and then later going back and drawing over it.

Another weird thing is I'm using someone else's custom GPT for part of it, so I can only do so much each day before it cuts me off with a paywall. This is forcing me to slow down, which might be good. I'm stopping on a moment that I want to keep writing, which prevents me from burning out and makes me excited to get back to it.

And of course, by this point "have the story be written, but not by me, so I can read it" is a dead dream, but I'm finding I enjoy this process.

[icarusthelunarguard]

This Week’s Horrible-Scopes

It’s time for this week’s Horrible-Scopes! So for those of you that know your Astrological Signs, cool! If not, just pick one, roll a D12, or just make it up as you go along. It really doesn’t matter. Better yet! Check out “Heart of the Game, Fredonia” - they can sell you those D12’s with the symbols on them! Get in contact with them on Facebook, shipping to the U.S. only, and tell them “Shujin Tribble” sentcha. “Hail, Hail, Fredonia!” Home of the Blue Devil!

Everything OLD is NEW again! Doesn’t mean it’s good or that it’s quality. But this week we’re helping you realize you can be inspired from the past to get things working again. So ditch your worries about coming up with new ideas and creatively acquire some old ones. But try to do it better than some of these selections.

Aries 

Originally composed in 1943 by Aaron Copland, Emerson Lake and Palmer recorded a version of ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ in 1977 - which was quite the hit! Apparently Copland himself objected to the extended keyboard solo that forms the last half of the album version. Because of that his estate has put a ban on people covering it any more. So This Week… It’s an AMAZING musical experience. Go see a symphony orchestra performing it sometime before the end of the year.

Taurus 

Keeping the spirit of musical reinvigoration alive, let’s get you to a song that was written by Irving Berlin May 1927, but got a new lease on life TWICE. The first was almost 50 years later when performed by Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle in the film ‘Young Frankenstein’ in 1974. And then 1982 Dutch Musician Taco brought it back to the pop circles with his pop-synth edition! So This Week… The original song is almost a century old! Start planning for its birthday now!  

Gemini 

Let’s go Heavy Re-creation Shift this time! Pictures At An Exhibition” was written in 1874 by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, and is a longer piece - having 10 movements. But if you want to really bend your understanding of how it could sound, may we suggest finding the electronic music adaptation by Isao Tomita, done in 1975. It has all the hallmarks of sounding like it could be the soundtrack of a 1970’s sci-fi psychedelia movie. So This Week… Put this piece on while you watch the 1976 movie, “Logan’s Run” and tell us it doesn’t just FIT.

Cancer Moon-Child 

We’d be totally wrong for leaving out one of the most iconic of classical pieces and its most famous modern cover. So, of course, it’s time to mention A Fifth of Beethoven as recorded by Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band in 1976. Naturally you should know that it was adapted from Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 written between 1804 and ‘08. Meaning it took over 160 years for Disco to catch up to Beethoven’s success. So This Week… If you want to be a hit with the masses, consider re-creating something that’s about 150 years old. It just might work.

Leo 

Let’s not stop with just ONE Disco Recreation, because we’ve got another for you. David Shire arranged a new version of another Mussorgsky classic from 1867; 110 years later gave us Night on Disco Mountain in 1977. Yes, these two were specifically for a movie soundtrack, but they got lots of radio play back in the day too. And, best of all, No Royalties to the original composer since, you know… kinda Not Around Anymore. So This Week… You claim to not like Disco, but we’ve seen the sequin-encrusted chunky-heel shoes you’ve got in the back of your closet. Let your freak flag fly this Halloween! The World Deserves To See!

Virgo 

Not so much a music as a film, and not with a happy ending. You remember a writer and illustrator named Theodor Seuss Geisel? Yes, that is Dr. Seuse’s real name! And you know what 50-years-later modern recreation of his works that ended poorly? The Cat in the Hat starring Mike Myers. Reminding you that the live-action version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas was a hit three years before, his estate hated this rendition so much that they’ve stopped authorizing any new reimaging works on his projects. So This Week… Try to stick closer to the script. If it fails you can always blame the writers.

Libra

Let’s get back to music again. For you we’re not only suggesting a song to hear, but reminding you of how to spell it. The song in question is "Sabre Dance", a movement in the final act of Aram Khachaturian's ballet Gayane from 1942. Yes, this is a fairly new addition to the list, but it’s still worthy. Because in 1991, in a concert in Spain, Dave Edmunds played the song on electric guitar and totally killed it! You should look that one up on YouTube sometime! So This Week… Only 50 years later this time? See, Libra! We bring you the Fresh New Stuff when we can! And remember, it’s spelt “S-A-B-R-E”. 

Scorpio 

One of the most popular singer/songwriter in the late-1970’s and 80’s, a one living legend Mister Billy Joel. His chorus from his song “This Night” from 1983 was taken from another Beethoven piece, “Pathétique Sonata” from 1798 - meaning nearly 200 years old! So This Week… Even legends deserve a little help once in a while. There’s only 88 keys on a piano.. You can expect someone to repeat something eventually.

Sagittarius 

This time it’s all 20th Century, both the original and the cover. In 1901, just into the century, Rachmaninov created “Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor”, which was… let’s call it “borrowed” by Eric Carmen in 1975 for his song, “All by Myself”! There was a whole To-Do discussing the influences and the inspirations and the possibility of plagiarism… And there was a settlement in it all, fortunately. So This Week… There’s nothing wrong with letting someone have co-writing credit on your stuff if you used their stuff. Try not to use something that visible next time. Meaning.. Learn to be a better thief!

Capricorn 

We don’t need to tell you what modern songs have been accused, usually correctly, for having been recreations of the original. You’ll get it. Originally from 1690… SIX-TEEN-NINE-TEE! Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” You know the song. You know the rant by Rob Paravonian. So This Week… SCREW YOU, Johann! On behalf of every Cello player… SCREW YOU, MAN!

Aquarius 

Ok, this time we’re actually caught off guard! Remember that Elvis Presley did a lot of cover songs, but how about this one? His 1960 single, “It’s Now or Never” can be traced back to 1898’s “O Sole Mio” by Eduardo di Capua! (*BEAT PAUSE!*) You just mentally sang both songs in your head, didn’t you? Yeah, we had to, too. So This Week… Learn how to sing at least ONE song in a language you don’t normally speak - something OTHER than Latin, at least. And remember: Opera was written because Italian is a THING!

Pisces  

Another song with a modern cover, which itself has a cover twist. Barry Manilow released his song, “Could It Be Magic” in 1975, which was based on Chopin’s 1835 song, “Prelude in C Minor No. 20” And now, as Dalan puts it often, “BUT WAIT! It gets BETTER!” Barry’s version, itself, is a cover of a cover! The song was initially released in 1971 by a group called Featherbed, which was a group of session musicians featuring Barry Manilow, and the song was produced and co-written by Tony Orlando of “--and Dawn” fame! So This Week… Stop staring into Infinity Mirrors. They’re starting to stare back at you.

And THOSE are your Horrible-Scopes for this week! Remember if you liked what you got, we’re obviously not working hard enough at these. BUT! If you want a better or nastier one for your own sign or someone else’s, all you need to do to bribe me is just Let Me Know - or check out the Ko-Fi page ( https://ko-fi.com/icarusthelunarguard )! These will be posted online at the end of each week via Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Discord, and BLUESKY.

[razzdazz319]

Wet Hot American Summer

For years this was our movie. I don’t know if we ever owned a copy of it, but it was 2002/2003 when a clerk at a Family Video in Bettendorf, Iowa told us to check it out. Rentals were a dollar. It was a great investment. I didn’t live in Bettendorf, but was with a college friend on a weekend trip (or something like that) back to his parents’ place. The visits came and went, but the movie stuck with me ever since.

In the supplemental features on the Blu-ray, Janeane Garofalo (interviewed at the time of filming) has a throw away comment about how Wet Hot American Summer could become a generation’s Caddyshack. I think she was right. Had Netflix existed twenty years ago in the form it does now, maybe they’d have rebooted Caddyshack as an original series that couldn't have possibly satisfied diehard fans of the original, as was the case for me with the series they rolled out a few years back. As is though, the original Wet Hot has developed into something like a comedic Bible for me: For ages I would do my best to spread The Good News™, advocating for others to open their hearts to its unique brand of bizarre. “Oh, fuck my cock” isn’t exactly scripture, but it had a greater impact on my life than any Bible verse ever did, when casually leaked from the lips of an actor I only knew as the tightly wound Niles Crane to that point in my life. The movie has countless moments just like that which I've carried with me ever since my first viewing. The list of ways it's influenced my own comedic tastes are boundless, but Wet Hot American Summer also skewed progressive and thoughtful with cutting views on topics ranging from homosexuality to male friendship and self-acceptance, all the way down to Beekeeper kid-types who would seed a forthcoming podcasting boom, lampooning quirky loners dying for an audience without a shred of desire to do the work to find that audience. There's a lot actually packed into its 90 minute run-time.

Wet Hot was also my introduction to the Michaels. I say that, but my mental timeline is probably a little off: I remember Michael Ian Black from VH1's Best Week Ever, but through this movie I later became aware of Stella, leading me to follow along with releases of grainy, low-res web series clips online and telling anyone who was willing to listen to me about my discovery. I loved Michael Ian Black's 2007 album I Am A Wonderful Man, but it was Michael Showalter's release from the same year called Sandwiches & Cats that landed me a brief online brush with greatness. In keeping with the times, I'd written a brief blog post about one of Showalter's tracks I'd been keeping on repeat called "Erotica," calling it "pretty much the musical equivalent to Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou… only better." As with most blogging from that era, it was a hastily thrown together idea posted with lax editing and a casual regard for its consequences. I couldn't have foreseen what happened next.

Questionable as the content or its delivery might have been, it crossed the desk of someone at Comedy Central who was spearheading a campaign to market the album online. "In the future," read the promotional kick-off, "tours to promote new comedy albums will be simply injected into our consciousness along with our daily mind-control serum and Soylent Nutrition. But in the present, promotional tours have moved from record stores to blogs. At least that's the case with Michael Showalter's new album Sandwiches & Cats, which releases today. That's right, Michael Showalter will be invading a slew of the internet's most beloved weblogs today with the singular goal of convincing you, the consumer, to consume his record." That included my blog, where Showalter wrote an article responding to mine in a sort of digital call and response. I was such a huge fan of his at the time (still am!), and loved so much about all the different projects he was working on in those years. However small a moment that was, it remains a lifelong blogging highlight for me. I ended up going to Black and Showalter's show in Minneapolis at the Pantages Theatre, but as was customary at the time, my over-indulgences left me with little recollection of the event thereafter. C'est la vie.

All of this isn't to mention the brilliance from cast members the likes of Christopher Meloni, Paul Rudd, or Molly Shannon, who each made Wet Hot what it was. It's truly an ensemble production and without each of its individual components and contributions it surely wouldn't have been what it was and has since become. What a strange movie to carry so much influence in someone’s life, but I've endlessly quoted this thing since college and still look for that ability in others as shorthand for being “my kind of person.” This movie built a tribe to which I feel I belong.

This article is part of Best of the Best, an ongoing series reflecting on and ranking my favorite music and movies, and was first published via Razzle Dazzle Music & Movies.

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