#HOW DID THIS BECOME LIKE A WHOLE FICLET I MEANT TO WRITE LIKE TWO PARAGRAPHS OTL

[feroluce]

For me, as much as I adore the theme of travel companions, henghill is more of a "someday" thing in that regard. I love Boothill being a weird loner Galaxy Ranger rather than a Nameless- man is undomesticated and belongs sleeping in the cargo holds of supply ships, threatening silence out of anyone that tries to report him. Let him be wild and free!!

I would LOVE it if Boothill just hitched a short ride off Asdana to whatever the Express' next destination is, though!

Like maybe the Express decides to stick around Penacony for a while, the same way they do other destinations, and Boothill is there anyway to investigate Oswaldo Schneider. It's rare to find a planet where the IPC is present, but doesn't actually have a lot of power; he can't pass this opportunity up!

And in that time, he sees a lot of Dan Heng.

Boothill gets text messages asking him to the quieter parts of the Dreamscape (he threatened and made a scene - it's called standing up for your rights, Dan Heng was given a room with a Dreampool by The Family for helping root out The Order) or mostly to the Express, where Dan Heng curiously asks him about Paths, about aeons and Emanators, The Rangers, all the worlds he's seen and places he's been.

Boothill isn't really surprised the first time they spend an entire night talking and discussing- after all, they'd chattered a lot that first day they met at the bar in the Reverie! But in talking so much, of course the topic of home comes up.

Dan Heng asks about Boothill’s homeworld.

Boothill tells Dan Heng it's gone now, and changes the subject.

Boothill asks about Dan Heng's past, before the Astral Express and the Nameless.

Dan Heng freezes up and closes off, and changes the subject.

In yet another moment of tacit understanding, neither of them ask again.

But this continues, all throughout their stint in Penacony, finding each other and seeking the other out for no reason other than good company. Dan Heng adds ridiculous amounts of data to the archives that Boothill dictates to him. They both know he could get that information elsewhere if he really wanted. Boothill finds he's kinda happy he doesn't.

And Boothill is someone who's hard to keep up with. He knows he is, and he has no problem with it. It's part of what makes him excel as a Galaxy Ranger. But there's something fun about how Dan Heng just rolls with it, and so effortlessly! Boothill finds something shady going on, grabs a guy who was preying on people, and has this dude held up by the collar with his feet swinging while he cackles right in his face, when Dan Heng shows up.

Boothill says they're just having a friendly chat. He makes zero effort to hide what he's actually doing. Boothill's new friend pleads for Dan Heng to help him, please! This guy's crazy!

Dan Heng materializes his spear.

The guy apologizes even harder, tells them he won't do anything shady ever again, promise, promise! Boothill's jabbers at him and shakes him around some more before Dan Heng taps the pole of his spear against the covered metal of Boothill's leg and tells him come on, he's already scared the man witless, they have a date to keep. Boothill drops the guy and watches him scurry off like a cockroach.

"So, now it's a date, huh?"

"...Come on, let's go."

They go to the Dreamflux Reef after that, because Boothill just so happened to totally by coincidence find that shady guy's wallet (read: robbed him blind) and he wants that money to go back to the native Penaconians before anyone else. Dan Heng follows, and stuffs all of the man's credits into the tip jar of the bar they go to.

And even when the Express embarks anew from Asdana (with Boothill hidden away in some corner or compartment, because the IPC finally got pissed enough to start looking for him under The Family's noses skzikske) this continues. The next planet is difficult to get to because of Stellaron activity; so they have to fly manually part of the way instead of warping. Boothill doesn't get his own room since he's only hitching a ride, but Pom-Pom graciously allows him to sleep on a couch-

("Thank ya, Fluffy. No hard feelings about before, right?" "You're lucky my other passengers like you. And no shoes on the couches!!")

-in one of the cars. And it becomes normal commonplace to find Boothill telling stories, and Dan Heng rapidly writing them all down, at obscene hours in the parlor car while Himeko and Welt ask if either of them even slept.

Boothill teaches Dan Heng all about his favorite drinks and liquor in general, how to aim and shoot a gun, how to hunt and track prey. Dan Heng teaches Boothill about a lot of the teachings of Lan and The Hunt from the Xianzhou, what it's like there, some of the culture, some of the fables and old tales.

Boothill still leaves when it's time to go. He's still got things to do and people to kill, after all.

But it never feels like he's very far. The archives are full of him, even if he's never mentioned by name. The article on the Galaxy Rangers is several times longer than it was before. There's new data on multiple planets and worlds.

There's one that's still just a header and title. Boothill doesn't know about it yet. Dan Heng hopes he can fill the page on Aeragan-Epharshel someday and show it to him.

And even if he doesn't stay, he does return. Boothill breaks in stops by any time he happens to be nearby. He's used to traveling without much rest, and only takes what he can easily carry on him- nothing that can slow him down or hinder him. He can't put a bullet between Oswaldo Schneider's eyes if he gets himself killed over something as stupid as being weighed down in a fight, after all.

Dan Heng is similarly sparse. He still sleeps in the archives, with nothing but his futon and old suitcase to mark the space as his.

But there's an old wooden guitar carefully propped in the corner, just waiting for its owner's return.

[buttersbots]

@emme2589 tagged me to do this whole thing?? If anyone wants to know far too much about my writing process, check out under the cut for 54 questions and answers!

1. Favorite place to write.      I can’t really say that I have one. The urge to write strikes me at odd times and in odd places. I’ve noticed I really like to write when I should be doing something else instead, or in places I rather shouldn’t be writing. Maybe my muse likes to walk on the edge? 2. Favorite part of writing.      When the characters write themselves! I’ll sit down with just an idea most of the time and the characters take care of the rest. If I have writer’s block, it’s probably because I’m trying to do something out of character, but I’m too reluctant to redo whatever’s bothering me. 3. Least favorite part of writing.      Random lack of motivation and coming up with titles. 4. Do you have writing habits or rituals?      I always have to be listening to something. Usually music, oftentimes TV (when I’m feeling relaxed and not in any rush, I like picking away at a story sentence by sentence while I’m distracted. Which is all the time).  5. Books or authors that influenced your style the most.      I’m really struck by Tolkien's writing style and try to emulate his imagery sometimes. Nothing has ever really captured me the way that does. Other than that, I guess my writing is inspired in part by everything I’ve ever read? 6. Favorite character you ever created.      Fletcher (surprise). My son. My hopes and dreams. 7. Favorite author.      Too hard... but I like @stormkeeper12 a lot. She’s my favorite person on this planet and a naturally gifted writer. 8. Favorite trope to write.      Ex-con adjusts to a normal, domestic life while moving past their traumas and unlearning toxic behaviors with the help of their loved ones, eventually learning to love life and feeling fulfilled in ways they never knew possible. 9. Least favorite trope to write.      Why would I write a trope I don’t like? 10. Pick a writer to co-write a book with and tell us what you’d write about.      @emme2589 WE’D WRITE ABOUT ROBOTS AND IT’D BE SICK AS HELL 11. Describe your writing process from scratch to finish.      It depends. If it’s just a ficlet, I’ll just write it out once I’ve had the idea usually over the course of a day or two, then go back and tweak things so it flows and there are no grammar/syntax/punctuation errors. If it’s a longer story, I’ll start it from some point and fill out the rest sporadically. Sometimes I’ll make outlines, sometimes my muse will slap me with a random scene and I’ll write it out and fill in the context of the story later. I rewrite constantly. 12. How do you deal with self-doubts?      I write as a coping mechanism. My writing improves the more I do it, so when I’m down in the dumps and need to get it out, my characters give me all the catharsis I need while simultaneously becoming more alive. 13. How do you deal with writers block?      I don’t. If I have writer’s block, I’m not going to get anything done, so I do something else. 14. What’s the most research you ever put into a book?      I don’t write books, but I think the most unneeded research I’ve ever put into something was at the beginning of Charming, and it was about tulips. I wanted Two’s gardening to be realistic since she knows everything there is to know about plant care, so I researched when you’re supposed to plant tulip bulbs, how to best tend to them so that they grow well, and learned a hell of a lot considering I’ve hardly gardened a day in my almost 20 years of existence. I think I only ended up mentioning that she was removing debris from the soil in the background. 15. Where does your inspiration come from?      That’s what I’d like to know! Why can’t I just be inspired by something popular that would get me regular feedback? Why did I have to fall for a speck of a crossover rarepair? Why do Nos and Two make me feel like I’m alive when nothing else will? 16. Where do you take your motivation from?      My own feelings. If an idea doesn’t make me feel things, I won’t write it. As a result, almost everything is comforting and low-energy or something light, quick, and comedic. 17. On average, how much writing do you get done in a day?     It wouldn’t really be fair to take an average when I’ll write nothing for days, write a couple paragraphs every other week when I should be doing homework, and then sit down and write seven pages straight every blue moon. 18. What’s your revision or rewriting process like?      I’ll comb through the entire story and tweak every word I don’t like until one day I’ve improved so much that I start tweaking at one point and end up rewriting the whole thing from scratch. (Example: Alloy [NSFW]). 19. First line of a WIP you’re working on.       When the doorbell rang, Fletcher was already at the front door, waiting to pull it open. Evening had just fallen. The porch light flickered, and it must have made him look even more frantic than he felt ‒ the two women standing on the porch practically jumped back at the sight of him.      [Fletcher Calls a Council] 20. Post a snippet of a WIP you’re working on.      With his sensors dulled to ignore the rest of the hospital, Nos-4-a2 felt like the entire universe was limited to his immediate surroundings. In front of him sat the long, low nanotherapy chamber, its contents swirling silver under the artificial light, unchanging over the passing hours. Across from that sat the heavy door, muffling the sound of people moving through the halls. Behind him, the curtains covered the world outside, blocking the progress of the storm. Even his thoughts seemed to come to a grinding halt, numb with waiting, tired of imagining every possible scenario.      The day had completely wasted away before the outside world came crashing in.      A quiet knock was his only warning before a star-struck Morgan opened the door. “You have some visitors!”      [Vampirism Chapter 6] 21. Post the last sentence(s sorry I have no self control) you wrote in one of your WIPs.      We hurt him. It was the only thought in her mind. He might not trust them any more. He might hate them. She didn’t know what to do, but she knew the only way to make anything right would be to explain.      “Fletcher... I’m coming up,” Two murmured. She unbuckled her cape and folded it, placing it on top of the low stone wall surrounding the tree. The white probe then proceeded to find her way through the mesh of bark and leaves until she was wedged in a niche of branches directly across from her son. He’d shifted his head so that he wasn’t looking at her.      “...Please, honey, talk to me,” Two whispered.      Fletcher blinked, his eyeforms narrowing. He waited, not knowing what to say or how to feel. His voice broke when he finally asked, “Did Dad ever kill anyone?”      [Family Secrets] 22. How many drafts do you need until you’re satisfied and a project is ultimately done for you?      I don’t keep drafts. I just work on something until I feel like the plot and language are sound enough for me to put it online. 23. Single or multi POV, and why?      I only ever write a story out of one point of view any more, and it’s almost exclusively third person, usually limited. Sometimes omniscient, but most of the time I’ll just switch limited from one character from another after a break in the story. Third person comes most naturally to me after all my studying because almost all of the reading we did was in third person. 24. Poetry or prose, and why?      Prose, because it’s the best way I know how to evoke a clear emotion. Prose is often more beautiful and meaningful to me than poetry. 25. Linear or non-linear, and why?      HAHAHAHAHA! Non-linear because I don’t have the discipline or desire to write in order. 26. Standalone or series, and why?      I think... both...? Somehow...? I write mostly ficlets and one-shots that don’t need a lot of context, but they have much more meaning if you’re familiar with the continuity that I write for, so...? 27. Do you share rough drafts or do you wait until it’s all polished?      @erick-achan and @emme2589 both have access to the hundreds of WIPs in my Google Drive. If I got to know anyone else who was interested, I’d give them the same thing. I’m so thirsty for feedback and gushing about/expanding on ideas, I can’t wait to be finished! 28. And who do you share them with?      Trusted creatives/anyone who shows the slightest bit of maybe thinking that they might want to look into Nos and Two. 29. Who do you write for?      Myself. 30. Favorite line you’ve ever written.      HOW COULD YOU ASK THIS? I don’t know! Oh GOD I’d have to read through everything and pick just one, it would take me ages, ‘cause what if I forgot about something and found it later? It would haunt me. 31. Hardest character to write.      Not sure. I don’t really want to spend energy on characters that don’t come naturally to me. 32. Easiest character to write.      Two. 33. Do you listen to music when you’re writing?      This is my go-to playlist. 34. Handwritten notes or typed notes?      Typed. I type everything. Sometimes I’ll hand write, but that’s only if I’m in a very particular mood or don’t have my computer with me. 35. Tell some backstory details about one of your characters in your story ________.      Well, this was obviously meant to be asked a single question at a time, so if you’d like to know more about the backstory of one of my characters, send me an ask! 36. A spoiler for story _________.      You can send me an ask for this as well, though there’s really nothing for me to spoil. I have a detailed timeline and write out of order. If you’re reading my stories, it’s probably for the interactions/journey. 37. Most inspirational quote you’ve ever read or heard that’s still important to you.      This doesn’t count as just a quote, but basically anything about Father Zosima’s philosophy in Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. We had to read it in AP Lit, and it was a drag, but Father Zosima’s teachings helped me get through a seriously dark time when nothing else could. I don’t subscribe to his religion as much as the message. You can kinda see what he’s all about in his shmoop article, but it doesn’t do justice to the depth of Zosima’s life story. It’s really the basis of how I try to live my life every day, and now that my sister’s reading TBK in AP Lit, I’m thinking about going back and looking over the Zosima parts again. 38. Have you shared your outline of your story ________ with someone? If so, what did they think of it?      Send me an ask~ 39. Do you base your characters of real people or not? If so, tell us about one.      I draw inspiration from everything, I think. There isn’t anyone who’s solely based on someone I know in real life or who I designed to be like anyone I’ve met. I guess Two’s boss at work is kinda like my managers, but I wrote her before I got my job, so that’s just coincidence. 40. Original Fiction or Fanfiction, and why?      Fanfiction, because I have no feelings for anything I’ve created on my own that didn’t stem from someone else’s intellectual property. I guess the closest I’ve come to original fiction is when I write a Fletcher-centric story that only involves other characters of my own design, which I guess are becoming more frequent. 41. How many stories do you work on at one time?      *choking back tears* I have open WIPs that date back to 2013 and I’ve only gotten more prolific since then. (I just counted 98 in my “fanfiction shorts” folder alone, so that’s not including ideas for ficlets or multi-chaptered stories that I have underway. Admittedly, many have been scrapped or set aside, but I never delete anything in case I can reuse some of the material.) 42. How do you figure out your characters looks, personality, etc.      I don’t design too many characters. Since most of the characters I make are children of other established characters, I just try to balance design elements. Otherwise I do my best to mix in diverse races, genders, and species. 43. Are you an avid reader?      Not nearly as much as I’d like to be. Most of my creative consumption in the past few years has been of video games, and more recently, D&D. 44. Best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten.      There are so many good ones that come to mind that make me feel warm from the depths of my soul. The comments that I got on Alloy on deviantART made me feel so validated, I lived off that energy for a month! There are also more general pieces of feedback such as someone (*cough* @emme2589 *cough*) writing a big multi-chaptered fic and l i s t i n g  m e  a s  i n s p i r a t i o n. My mortal soul transcended this plane of existence that day. That really goes for anyone who shows any affectation from my writing, though, no matter the medium. Two of my best friends on the planet I only got to know because of our shared interest in Energy Vampires. 45. Worst piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten.      The only bad feedback is a lack of feedback. (Maybe I only say that because nobody’s given me negative feedback before, but that’s just because not enough people care about Nos and Two, and I’m a Thirsty Bitch.) 46. What would your story _______ look like as a tv show or movie?      LISTEN. If ANYTHING I wrote were to be adapted to moving visual media, it would be 2D cartoon animation, and it would kill me instantly. 47. Do you start with characters or plot when working on a new story?      ...Both? I don’t have a clear answer for this one. 48. Favorite genre to write in.      I’m sorry, but I was raised on FanFiction.net, so I counting “fluff” as a genre is literally a part of my being. My favorite is fluff. 49. What do you find the hardest to write in a story, the beginning, the middle or the end?      Depends on the story. 50. Weirdest story idea you’ve ever had.      I can’t talk about it in polite company. 51. Describe the aesthetic of your story _______ in 5 sentences or words.      Send me an axe. Ask. Axske. 52. How did writing change you?      Writing didn’t change me, my writing changes as I do. I started writing for Wall.E as soon as I could. I was 10 at the time, and I pretty much consider that the beginning of my life. Everything before that was just vague, formative details leading up to me seeing Wall.E and discovering my one true love. 53. What does writing mean to you?      It’s my found family, fictional and non-fictional. 54. Any writing advice you want to share?      Just don’t stop. You can’t help but get better if you just don’t stop. Don’t be discouraged, but don’t stagnate: learn what you struggle with and do better. When you find a writing style you really admire, don’t feel like you’ll never live up to it, just try to reach that level in small ways. Before you know it, you’ll have found your own way and people will be looking up to you, which is scary in its own right. Also, read Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. This is the handiest book any writer who’s into the minutia of grammar and syntax could ever need.