#WIP Matryoshka
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vacantgodling · 26 days ago
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17 for the ask game!!
THANK YOU <3<3
-> Send me a number 1-100 and I will tell you how that song relates to a character or WIP of mine.
17. マトリョシカ — hachi
LMAO idk if anyone is gonna remember this wip bc i talked about it so randomly and so briefly awhile back but these (and most vocaloid songs in general that are my faves which is a lot of stuff by hachi lol) make me think of my wip broken clouds. its similar to train master chidori in the sense that it's should be a webcomic or a web novel type of thing but gl getting me to draw that much--i will one day prommy.
anyway the very basic premise is this:
utah (he/they) and his younger sibling slug (they/them) have been living with their mother's elder sister, risky game (aka aunty(ie) risk) since they were small, ever since their mother disappeared without a trace and the siblings were found malnourished. risk barely takes care of them, preferring to drink and gamble and leave them to their own devices leading each kiddo down their own path. utah, the elder and more tempermental of the two, lashes out but also is practically a genius when it comes to engineering and weaponry. after meeting his other half, gator (he/she/they), he turns to building and reassembling weapons from the parts remnant of 'the great cloud war' (idk what it was ask me or don't i'll pull shit out of my ass SDBK) to make money and eventually decides when they turn adult age to say fuck it, i'm gonna go find my mom bc this shit blows. origninally it was only supposed to be utah and gator striking out on their own to find out what happened, but slug ends up tagging along bc they want to know too + adventure + they have abandonment issues after the mom thing and risk ends up getting dragged with them because like hell does she trust them to not get themselves blown up (but also in part because she feels guilt; she knows that she wasn't the best parental figure to either of them, but she was so shaken over her sister's disappearance that she took her guilt and anguish out by not being there for the kids its a whole thing). and utah isn't happy about this but they are Barely convinced to let slug and risk come with bc as gator says "family bonding, what can go wrong!"
a Lot. cough.
tl;dr government conspiracy shit, suicide bots + one that's gained sentience but technically still has an active kill switch (green), a government sleeper agent with amnesia (agent oogma -- her code name literally means "olive oil gives me amnesia" and she always keeps a bottle of olive oil on her person so if someone tries to question her about secret government shit she can literally give herself amnesia and forget... except she's used the oil so many times that she has no way of recovering anything about herself. just hot mess energy). a fire elemental (dulce)... and more!!
wip wholly inspired by watching cy throw shit against the wall about se pff.
but here's some of the character designs--i should make thrown together character sheets for them all tbh:
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and then 2 of slug >
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nanahoii · 9 months ago
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wip matryoshka gumi request in case i ruin it finished wise
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tibby-art · 7 months ago
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Realized I had some old WIPs of my part of the ConVex Matryoshka MAP lying around and decided to upload them :J
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withlovelunette · 2 years ago
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writeblr introduction!
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I really want to make writer friends so I’ve recently decided to involve myself more in the online space! Feel free to interact with the post if you’re a writing/writing craft blog so I can give you a follow!
About my writing / favourite genres to read
- Fairytales and folklore are very central in both my own writing and what I enjoy to read.
- Literary fiction with morally grey or even morally reprehensible characters.
- Mythology incorporated into the story.
- Classic and gothic literature are also some of my favourites to read!
- Fantasy (usually classics) and sci-fi, though I don’t write a lot of sci-fi myself.
- Not much of a romance reader, but I enjoy a good romance subplot and period pieces, as well as queer themes!
- Steampunk settings :)
About myself
I’m a norwegian-icelandic writer, but I primarily write in english. I’m a huge book lover and folklore enthusiast, to the point where I’m currently studying it in university. I’m also an artist in my spare time, and have an interest in philosophy, psychology and (personality) typology! I’m game tag friendly and more than happy to talk about writing craft and personal projects. Hopefully I’ll be able to make posts about my WIPs one day, but I’m hoping to make some friends on here regardless!
Updated with WIPs list!
Matryoshka Doll & Wooden Soldiers (WIP)
A fairytale retelling of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King! Tag: #md&ws
Animal Arbiter (WIP)
A gothic folk-horror novella! Tag: #animal arbiter
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laiqualaurelote · 2 years ago
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for the wip ask meme: cover story!
Thank you for this ask (from this WIP game)! a couple of folks have asked about this one. It's the Ted/Trent spy-AU-in-a-Notting-Hill-bookshop-AU, which stalled because the premise got too unwieldy and the literary references got out of hand. (It did have a playlist I was quite fond of, with a number of Kinks songs including, presciently, A Well Respected Man). Because I am unlikely to ever finish it, I thought I'd just fic amnesty the whole thing here, so:
Cover Story
Trent is about to wind up stocktaking when the door to the bookshop bangs open. “We’re closed,” he calls irritably, and then he turns and sees who it is.
“I got something of a reading emergency,” says Ted Lasso.
Trent takes him in: breathing hard, collar askew, perspiration plastering a lick of hair against his forehead. In his hand is a gun. Trent recognises it as a Heckler & Koch P30L.
Trent ought to be going for his own weapon right about now. Instead he says: “So it is you.”
“Yep,” says Ted.
“I knew it,” hisses Trent. “I fucking knew it.”
“Boy, you sure do like to be right about stuff.” Ted pauses, then staggers. Trent sees that he is favouring his left side, and that the shirt beneath the puffer jacket is darkening with blood.
“Ted,” he begins, “wh – ”
“Like I said,” Ted grits out, “emergency.” And then he collapses in the middle of Trent’s bookshop.
Five weeks earlier
“You wouldn’t happen to have the latest John le Carré, would you?”
Trent has to climb a little ways down the ladder to see the man speaking to him. It’s one of the American tourists who wandered in after lunch. There are always Americans underfoot these days, trawling the aisles of the bookshop as if in hope of a meet-cute out of Notting Hill. Trent, as a rule, finds Americans tedious and does his level best to avoid them in all his lines of work; he achieves this in the bookshop by hiding in the stacks and leaving them to the tender mercies of his assistant. Unfortunately, this appears to be a particularly persistent specimen. Trent descends a few more rungs and braces himself.
“Is that the one with Brexit?”
“The one with the bookshop.” The American has a very distracting moustache. He looks almost exactly like a slide Trent once saw in Disguises 101: How Not To Overdo It. He is also wearing multiple layers beneath his puffer jacket, like some sort of Midwestern matryoshka, even though the shop’s heating is working perfectly well. Trent is automatically suspicious of customers with many layers, lest they are shoplifters. But a shoplifter would not go to such lengths to gain his attention.
“If you mean the posthumously published one, it’s not yet in stock. Shipping delays, I’m afraid.”
“Ain’t that a pity,” says the American. “I was sold on the premise. A bookshop that’s secretly a base for spy shenanigans? Tell me you don’t want to see how that turns out.”
Trent removes his glasses, keeping his expression bland. “You could put in an order, but if you’re not in town for long then I daresay there isn’t much point.”
“Oh, we’ll be here for a while. Long vacation. Thought we’d take it easy, like the Eagles would say. Though this ain’t Winslow, Arizona.”
“You can place an order with Miss Bowen at the counter,” says Trent, after he has cast about for a response to that string of gibberish and come up empty.
“You bet I will. If I could just – ” The American reaches out, and Trent almost breaks his wrist on instinct, but he simply brushes past Trent’s sleeve and pulls a secondhand copy of Call For The Dead off the shelf. “Maybe we ain’t see the last of le Carré, but at least it’s a first.”
“Ah, ha,” says Trent, to mask his surprise that they even have a copy of Call For The Dead in stock. It’s probably languished in here for years, unsold. “Good eye.”
“Well, I thank you for the consultation, Mr…”
“Crimm. Trent Crimm, The Independent.”
“Well, Trent, I appreciate you. Keep fighting the good fight.”
Trent blinks. “Against…?”
“Amazon,” says the American brightly. “Which, as an American, I apologise for.”
“Er, quite,” says Trent. “Sorry about Brexit, and all that.”
The American’s name on the order form is Ted Lasso, which makes him sound like a fictional character. He collects his bearded friend from the philosophy section and they depart, engaged in a discussion so animated that Lasso walks into the shop door, rebounds with no perceptible damage and continues his argument without missing a beat. Trent and Miss Bowen watch them go, mildly perplexed.
“Is he a subscriber? I don’t recognise either of them.”
“Just an ordinary customer, from the looks of it. He wanted to talk about books.”
“I suppose it must happen from time to time, in a bookshop,” says Miss Bowen dryly.
Trent crosses to her side of the counter, which is built in such a way that a customer, standing in line, would not be able to see what her hands might be doing. He leans down casually to check the automatic shotgun mounted under the countertop. 
“He was talking about the new le Carré. It’s about spies in a bookshop, apparently.”
“Oh,” says Miss Bowen, eyebrow raised. “Is it now?”
“Yes,” says Trent. “We ought to get hold of it quite quickly, I think. In case there’s been a breach.”
“Come now.” She turns to him sharply. “Le Carré couldn’t have written a novel about us. I mean, he’d never been in the shop. We’d know, wouldn’t we?”
“I daresay we would, Miss Bowen. But put in the order anyway.”
“Certainly, Mr Crimm. And did you want new grenades on top of that?”
“I did, yes, thank you for reminding me.”
“Of course.” A pause. “We are quite sure that man wasn’t a subscriber, are we?”
Trent scoffs. “What, that guy? Come on.”
*
Trent’s childhood dream was to own a bookshop. He thought of bookshops as places where you could read all day and avoid people, which seemed like paradise. However, his family being who they were, his skills being what they were, the job market for English degree-holders being what it was – he spent a year at odd ends, haphazardly weighing the pursuit of postgraduate studies against attempting to break into the publishing industry, until finally he gave up and took the path he knew had always been there, lying in wait for him. He became a spy.
It was another fifteen years before he revisited the idea of the bookshop, in the wake of his abrupt and unceremonious retirement from the Circus. Cleis was one and a half years old by then, and he knew he must find something, for her sake – he had promised –  even though he could not stomach the thought of going out in the cold again. He was mulling over his various options – heaven forfend he wind up in something horrible, like insurance – when his mother dropped by for tea and said peremptorily: “Mae is retiring, don’t you know?”
Mae – the only name anyone ever knew her by – was a veritable battleaxe who ran the Crown and Anchor, a pub that doubled up as the London station for agents of every stripe working in or passing through the city. The stations, by the unspoken rules that governed their universe, were neutral ground; they served every agency and freelancer without question and in turn brooked no conflict within their confines. To move against a station was to move against the combined powers of the rest of the agencies. Nobody had tried it in Trent’s lifetime.
“Oh?” said Trent. He was only partially listening to his mother; most of his attention was focused on trying to get Cleis to keep her yoghurt in her mouth. “Who’s taking over, then?”
His mother fixed him with the glare she had honed on some of the finest intelligencers this side of the Atlantic, as well as his teenage self. “I rather thought you might throw your hat in the ring, dear.”
Cleis mawed at her in surprise and dribbled watery yoghurt down her bib. Trent sighed. “I’ll talk to Mae.”
Mae thought it was a ridiculous notion to run a station as a bookshop. “You wouldn’t catch half that lot dead in a bookshop,” was her take on it. “Who has time for reading these days? And you’ll have to get in books! Actual books!”
“That’s rather the idea, yes,” said Trent. “It can’t be harder than maintaining a liquor licence.”
“Well, it’s not like I was going to hand the tender over to anyone else,” admits Mae. “What will you call it, love?”
Trent considered. “The Independent. Because that’s what it is.”
Even Mae had to admit, a few years in, that it was working out quite well. He’d even managed to sell some books.
*
“How’s the le Carré?” Miss Bowen asks, amid her reshelving. “Are we in trouble?”
“I don’t think so.” Trent is perusing Silverview at the counter, book in one hand, the other on the rifle. “The bookshop’s in East Anglia, and the protagonist hasn’t the first idea how to run it.”
“Oh, well then,” says Miss Bowen. “It will put nobody in mind of us at all. Is it any good? I’m always wary of these late discovery manuscripts. I don’t think I ever got over the disappointment of Go Set A Watchman.”
“It’s unevenly weighted. Makes you miss him at his best.” Trent turns a page. “Still, I’m glad he didn’t go gentle into that good night.”
He tenses as the shop bell rings, then sees that it is Keeley Jones, resplendent in a fluffy yellow coat. “What can we do for you, Miss Jones?”
“Trading in,” sings Keeley. “On Jamie’s behalf.”
Trent takes off his glasses and gives her a forbidding look. “What, has he gone and lost the lot again?”
Keeley winces. “Only some of it.”
Trent sighs. “Let’s get it processed in the back.”
Jamie Tartt is one of the stars of the agency known as the Dogtrack. He’s also aggravatingly cocky and spectacularly laissez-faire with his equipment; Keeley’s always in here, making apologies for him having thrown his Glock into a volcano, or something. Trent has no patience for the likes of Jamie Tartt. One already has so many people trying to kill one in this line of work, but there he is, giving even more people reasons to want him dead.
The back room is behind a reinforced steel door that can only be opened using either Trent’s or Miss Bowen’s fingerprints and a passcode that changes every day. The passcode is in fact a rolling alphanumerical series that progresses through the entirety of Hamlet, and if anyone ever cracks it, Trent will be very impressed by their grasp of Shakespeare. In the back room, Trent lays out the remnants of Jamie Tartt’s mission kit and purses his lips.
“To lose one dart gun, Miss Jones, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.”
“Oh, you needn’t have a go at me, I’m proper mad at him myself. You know what he did last week? Tried to murder Roy Kent. Roy Kent!”
“What, for work?”
“Not even that! Some kind of fucking…pissing contest.” Keeley makes a noise of exasperation. “Some days it’s like we gave a bunch of five-year-olds guns and let them loose on a jungle gym. You know what I mean?”
“I’ll just put it on his tab,” says Trent. “Which is astronomical, by the way.”
“I’ll chivvy the folks at the Dogtrack to send you a cover. Only they’re rushed off their feet this week – you must have heard.”
Trent has heard, but it always serves one in intelligence gathering to pretend to know less than one really does. “What’s happening over there?”
“The Mannions are going to war,” says Keeley, her voice lush with the juice of gossip - another reason why Trent likes having her in the shop. “The whole Dogtrack’s splitting up. Christ, but it’s a mess down there.”
“Who’s Jamie backing?”
“Hasn’t decided. Rupert’s putting it about that the whole agency’s going with him, but word on the street is that Rebecca Welton’s brought in someone from abroad to take him out. They’re saying it’s an American.” She sucks in an excited breath. 
“Why would you bring in an American for that?” demands Trent. 
“Beats me. It’s going to keep us all on our toes for a bit, to be sure. I reckon it’s some Tom Cruise type, all Mission Impossible Jack Reacher like. But nobody knows for certain.” 
“Surely not,” says Trent. “You at least must have some idea, Miss Jones.”
Keeley flutters her eyelashes at him. “Who, me? I’m just a humble secretary.”
“Of course you are,” says Trent. “And I’m just a poor bookseller.”
Keeley slants a sly look at him. “You haven’t seen any Americans around, have you?”
“We get Americans in the store all the time. Just this morning we had a Mrs Glenda Johnson from South Carolina complaining that we don’t have a café in the store.”
“Yeah,” says Keeley, “fairly sure it’s not Mrs Glenda Johnson. Isn’t there a Costa two doors down?”
“Precisely,” says Trent. “Americans.”
They return to the front of the store, the afternoon light streaming across the polished wood floors and touching the book covers. “It really is awful pretty, when the light’s good,” says Keeley, running a hand across a row of Sally Rooneys. “You know what you ought to do? You should do #BookTok.”
“That,” says Trent, “is the single worst suggestion I’ve ever heard.”
Keeley laughs. “Give me a pot of money and some Madeline Miller and I’ll do it for you. I’ll make you so famous, you’ll be beating influencers off with a stick.”
“Just tell the Dogtrack to pay for your boyfriend’s damage.”
Keeley sticks her tongue out as she swings out of the shop. “If you see the American, you’ll tell me first. Won’t you?”
*
“Tell me a story,” says Cleis. They’re curled up in her bed, her tiny frame pillowed against his side. 
“You’ve had two already.”
“But I want another.” Cleis looks up at him, her eyes clear and green as the sea. “Tell me about Maman.”
Trent stares up at the glow-in-the-dark stars that speckle her bedroom ceiling. Tell me about a complicated woman, he hears Coralie say in his head. She sounds slightly amused. This is an anachronism, of course. Coralie never lived to see the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey. She would have loved it.
“Where do I start with your mother?”
“Was she very beautiful?”
“Yes. She knew exactly how beautiful she was and what to do with it.”
“Do I look like her?”
“The spitting image.” Even at four, Cleis looks so much like her mother that Trent will sometimes look over at her, in the middle of something mundane like making dinner or brushing her hair, and the resemblance will strike him like a punch to the gut.
Cleis is pleased by this. “What else?”
“Well. She loved old poems, and she was a lot stronger than she looked, and she wasn’t scared of a thing. Never listened to anyone either.”
“Not even you?”
“I like to think she listened to me a bit more than most other people,” allows Trent, “but even that wasn’t very much.”
Cleis kneads her quilt between her small hands. “Why didn’t she come back?”
Trent swallows. “She couldn’t. She had to save everyone.” Including me, he doesn’t add. Instead he says: “She loved you more than anything in the world.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me so. It was the last thing she said, before – ” Trent stops. Cleis is silent.
“Go to sleep now, chouette.”
It’s another hour before she drifts off to sleep proper. He sits in the dark, her hand tucked in his, until she does.
*
“So that’s your subscriber number, which you should quote in all correspondence with us and over the phone when placing orders. Orders placed within less than twenty-four hours of pick-up will be subject to last-minute fee increments. Is that understood, Mr Rojas?”
The lush-haired young man beams at Trent across the counter. “Si, entiendo.”
“Book club notices are posted on the board to the right,” Trent goes on. “Those are for freelancers, I don’t vet them personally and you attend book club at your own risk. This is for your first assignment.” He hands over a copy of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666. Dani Rojas makes to open it; Trent slams it shut. “Don’t open your books in the store.”
“Okay,” says Dani, wide-eyed. He hefts the book experimentally in his hand. “It is very heavy. Does it have a happy ending?”
Trent snorts. “It’s a Bolaño, what do you think?”
Dani nods cheerfully. “I thank you for this, señor. Literature is life.”
“I mean, it actually isn’t,” says Trent, “which is sort of the whole point – but never mind. All the best, Mr Rojas.”
Dani leaves, whistling. He passes Roy Kent on his way in. “He’s not the American, is he?” says Roy, not quite sotto voce to Trent.
“I rather think he’s Mexican,” says Trent. “Are you all still going on about that? I’d have thought you’d have worked it out by now.”
“Nah,” says Roy. “No idea who it is. Mrs Mannion – that is to say, Ms Welton – is keeping her cards close to her chest. Old Rupert’s foaming at the mouth. They say he’s got hold of some kind of leverage, but fucked if we know what.” He studies the noticeboard. “Anything good at book club?”
“What, are you freelancing now?”
“Reckon I might as well, since it’s all going to shit at the Dogtrack.” Roy frowns at A Moveable Feast, Wednesday 8pm; A Gentleman In Moscow, Thursday 7pm; and Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, Thursday 9pm. He points at the last. “Where’s that one again?”
“East Java. I hear Indonesia’s nice this time of year.”
“Right, let’s give it a go then.”
Trent scribbles down a number on a Post-It and hands it to Roy. “Call it and burn it. You know the drill.”
“Cheers.” Roy regards Trent, brows thickly furrowed. “You’ve seen the American, haven’t you?”
“No comment.” 
Roy grunts. “Bet you have. You’re just being a prick about it, as usual.”
“Whoever it is, they’re probably out in the community already,” says Trent. “Bravely or stupidly.”
“Stupidly,” decides Roy, stalking off.
*
The problem with The Independent is that, despite Trent’s best efforts and the imminently prophesied demise of brick-and-mortar bookselling, it still continues to be a fairly popular bookshop. Trent has no idea why this is. He puts zero effort into the window displays. He shelves the books in no discernible order, so it is virtually impossible for a customer to locate anything. Sometimes he even leaves terrible TripAdvisor reviews for himself, to discourage casual browsers and tourists. And yet the shop continues to see customers – not subscribers, actual book-loving civilians. People keep popping in to have opinions on how Trent should run his bookshop, to complain that he doesn’t sell stationery or upbraid him for not carrying the latest Stephenie Meyer or insinuate that he should hold poetry readings (of their poems) in the store. It’s a marvel that Trent has gone all these years without shooting anyone in the face.
Still, the shop has regulars somehow. There are the subscribers, and then there are normal people who just show up and spend ages browsing, even though Trent has made sure there is nowhere comfortable for them to sit. There is the elderly gent who pops in nearly every morning to thumb through books and point out printing errors to anyone unfortunate enough to be in proximity. There is the teenage girl who spends afternoons seated cross-legged in an aisle, reading The Sandman in instalments. And then there’s Ted Lasso.
“Why’d you call it The Independent?” Ted wants to know. He’s come back to pick up his copy of Silverview, and despite having achieved this with little incident, has nevertheless once more sought out Trent where he is dusting the shelves.
“Because it is an independent bookstore,” says Trent, who is in fact sweeping for bugs. He finds one planted atop a birding guide and surreptitiously crushes and pockets it. “Can I help you with anything else, Mr Lasso?”
“I was wondering where I might find your Graham Greene.”
“I believe we have The Quiet American somewhere in the shop, if you can bear to wait while I excavate it. Though,” adds Trent, “you are a distinctly unquiet American.”
“You can say that again,” says Ted cheerfully. “You wouldn’t happen to have a copy of The Third Man, would you?”
Most people haven’t even seen The Third Man, let alone are aware that it was based on a Graham Greene novella. “You know your spy fiction, Mr Lasso.”
“Call me Ted, won’t you?”
Trent drags the ladder around the corner and retrieves The Third Man from a high shelf near where the ceiling dips. He looks down, head tilted, at the man beaming up at him from the foot of the ladder. You’ve seen the American, haven’t you? Ted Lasso does not look like the kind of American called in to bring down the head of an agency. He looks like a caricature of an American. He has worn the same pair of khakis every time he has set foot in this shop and it is likely he does so without irony. Yet Trent has the feeling that something is off, the way that shots in The Third Man are framed at a slight angle so that the city looks like a painting knocked askew. 
Ted clears his throat. “Kinda staring there, Trent. Makes a fella wonder if he ain’t got toothpaste in his moustache.”
Trent hands over the book. “Why are you here, Ted? Really?”
“First thing I always do when I land in a new place is find a local bookstore,” says Ted brightly. “Tells you a lot about the town, your local bookstore.”
Trent takes off his glasses. “And what, pray, have you learnt from this one?”
“That nothing is where you think it’ll be,” says Ted. “But it sure helps if you ask for directions.” 
“Perhaps you should ask him if he wants to get coffee,” says Miss Bowen after Ted has left. “Isn’t that why you hired me? So you could have more of a social life?”
Trent pinches the bridge of his nose. “I hired you so that in the event of a terrorist attack on the shop, we wouldn’t be short-handed.”
“I’m glad you did. It was this or go back to teaching kindergarten.” She raises her voice sharply as a man in a denim jacket emerges from behind a shelf and shuffles towards the door. “Stop right there!”
“Uh,” says the man intelligently. “What’s this about?”
“We have CCTV in the shop, you know,” says Miss Bowen. “So we’d appreciate it if you didn’t leave the shop with Jonathan Franzen stuffed down your trousers.”
The man leers. “Like to come over and check on it yourself, love?”
Miss Bowen meditatively flicks open the boxcutter she was using to trim plastic wrap. “You know, I just might.”
The man hastily removes the Franzen. “All right, no need to get all shirty about it. I’ll just put it back then.”
“The fuck you will, we’re not touching that again,” says Miss Bowen. “You’re going to leave twenty quid on the counter – with your other hand, mind – and then you’re going to back out the door and never come back.”
“Can’t do that in kindergarten, can you,” remarks Trent after their errant customer has complied and made himself scarce.
“There’s something to be said about the job satisfaction in this place,” agrees Miss Bowen.
*
Trent arrives at his parents’ just in time to see his daughter stabbing his father in the front garden.
“Ah! Ah! Alas!” cries his father, sinking dramatically into the grass as Cleis bashes him joyously with a foam sword. “You’ve got me, dread pirate!”
“Did you kill grandpa, chouette?” says Trent as she greets him by thwacking him on the shins with her sword. 
“Three times,” says Cleis modestly as she is scooped up.
“She’s a bloodthirsty one.” His father is rising ponderously to his feet, brushing grass stains off his knees. He dotes on Cleis in a fashion that was distinctly lacking in Trent’s own childhood. Trent still cannot get over the incongruity of it – the legendary Chester Crimm, scourge of the Stasi Circle, playing pirates on the lawn with a four-year-old. He does have the eyepatch for it, Trent reflects.
His father turns his good eye towards Trent. “Sell a lot of books today, son?”
“Hilarious,” says Trent shortly. “Where’s mum?”
“Getting her hair done.” They head back into the house. “What’s this I’m hearing about an American at the Dogtrack?”
“Christ, I’m sick of hearing about the American. How’d that even get to you?”
“I was at poker night with the old guard. It’s all everyone’s talking about, the Mannion split.” His father pulls a beer from the fridge and hands it to Trent as Cleis makes for the living room television. “Never liked Mannion. Did you know he tried to get off with your mother, back in the day?”
“Ugh,” says Trent faintly.
“That was before he got mixed up with the Welton girl, of course,” says his father with the alacrity of the generation who can get away with calling Rebecca “the Welton girl”. “The agencies are such a shitshow these days. You know, back in my day – ”
“By all means,” says Trent mordantly, “reminisce about the Cold War, dad. What a splendid time that was.”
“You know what I mean,” his father grumbles. “People just got divorced and got on with things. Didn’t go about involving Americans. You’ve not seen the American, have you? Why are you laughing?”
“I’m just thinking of the rhyme,” says Trent. “From The Scarlet Pimpernel.” At his father’s blank look, he recites: “They seek him here, they seek him there, those people seek him everywhere! Is he in heaven or in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel.”
“Damned!” exclaims Cleis from the doorway. “Damned, damned, damned!”
Trent stares at her, aghast. “Now look what you’ve done,” says his father.
*
Ted isn’t in the shop today, though his bearded friend has put in an appearance. He has only ever been referred to as Beard, and Trent is coming round to the idea that it might actually be the man’s Christian name, because who even knows with Americans? He’s browsing in the back, which is fine, and has been engaged for the past fifteen minutes in a conversation with Jane Payne, which is not so fine.
“Should we say something?” Miss Bowen wonders.
“We are The Independent,” says Trent. “We have a policy of non-interference.”
“I mean, she’s literally toxic. Did you see the photos from her Dubai job?”
“No. Jesus. Why are there even photos?”
Miss Bowen shrugs. “No idea. Everyone’s been sending them around in the group chats. Did not know you could get blood that colour.”
“Miss Payne can do what she likes, provided she does it outside the shop.” Trent pauses. “Though you could ask him if he wants to get coffee.”
“No thank you,” says Miss Bowen. “I have no wish to be stabbed in the pancreas by Jane Payne.”
They are distracted by the shop bell. Trent is surprised and slightly disconcerted to see none other than Rebecca Welton bearing down upon the counter in all her glory. The agency heads rarely visit the shop in person; Trent typically corresponds with Mr Higgins for the Dogtrack’s interests.
“Ms Welton. What can we do for you?”
“I’d like to see your Canterbury Tales special edition,” says Rebecca without preamble. 
Trent blinks. “Certainly. This way.”
In the back room, he opens the case where the Chaucer collection is stored. Rebecca begins looking it over critically. She hefts a rocket launcher experimentally, testing its weight. “Which one is this?”
“The Wife of Bath. Gives you five shots.”
“Hm,” says Rebecca approvingly. “I rather like the sound of that.” She inspects the double-barrelled shotgun dubbed the Man of Law and the poison darts of the Pardoner. “I’ll take the lot for the rest of the month.”
“That’s a lot of firepower,” says Trent bluntly. “You’re not trying to kill your husband, are you?”
“I don’t know why you’d say that, Mr Crimm. Though I suspect he might be trying to kill me.”
“Is it all for you? Or is any of it for the American?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Rebecca, expression immaculate. “Do invoice Mr Higgins.”
*
“Darling,” says Trent in long-suffering tones, “please get out of the tree.”
Cleis responds by clambering to a higher branch. She’ll be a while. Trent sighs and puts his hands on his hips, gazing out across the green. It’s a pleasant Sunday morning in the park, though it doesn’t stop him from tracking every jogger and picnicking couple in the vicinity, combing the milieu for hands in pockets and inside coats, calculating distances and trajectories. 
His gaze moves across and catches on a lone jogger making his way up the path in their direction. That’s Ted Lasso, he’s sure of it: head down, shoulders hunched against the bite of wind off the water, but there’s no mistaking that moustache. As Trent watches, he raises his head and their eyes meet. He does a very convincing double-take. He’s either genuinely surprised to see Trent here, or his acting skills are commendable. That Trent can’t tell says a lot. Then his face splits into a broad grin.
“Hey there, Trent Crimm, The Independent!”
“Hello, Ted Lasso from America.” Trent eyes Ted as he jogs over, beaming affably. He waves his hand awkwardly. “You…live around here?”
“Oh yeah, Beard and I have digs around here. Like to come out for a run on the weekends.”
“Your vacation is stretching on rather,” Trent informs him.
“Oh, we picked up some work,” says Ted evasively. “Thought we’d stick around, make hay while the sun shines. Though you ain’t got a whole lot of hay around these parts. Not like what I’m used to, at any rate.”
“What sort of work do you do, Ted?”
“Human resources,” says Ted blandly.
Trent removes his glasses and fixes Ted with a searching look. Ted meets his gaze, perfectly amiable. Trent narrows his eyes. Ted doesn’t blink. The whole effect is ruined when Cleis leaps out of the tree unannounced and tumbles onto him.
“Oh for f – ” Trent bites off invective as he staggers. “For the last time, my love, climb down.”
“But this is faster,” says Cleis innocently. She appears to notice Ted, and peers at him curiously as Trent sets her down.
“Well hey there, sweetheart,” says Ted. “What’s your name?”
“Cleis.”
“Fais attention,” says Trent, more sharply than is his wont. Cleis stiffens and tucks herself behind his knee. She always takes her cues from him, and he realises too late his body language has been telescoping an ease with Ted that he should not have brooked. She has never introduced herself to a stranger before.
Ted must pick up on some of that, because he stops short of coming over, instead maintaining the distance between them and crouching down till he is at Cleis’s eye level. “That’s a real pretty name,” he tells her. “It’s from a poem, ain’t it?”
“Sappho.” Trent’s throat feels tight.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” says Ted. “Like a small golden flower. Did you name her?”
“No,” says Trent. “That was her mother. She's – she liked the classics.”
On Trent’s first mission to Morocco, he was paired with a young agent with a French accent and a Classics degree. The former was nearly imperceptible except when she was under pressure; the latter was of no use whatsoever on the mission, any more than Trent’s own English degree was.
“You’re gay, aren’t you?” she said after they had spent four minutes making out pointedly in an alcove to distract the security guards of the Casablanca mansion they were breaking into.
“I’m afraid so,” said Trent, picking a lock.
“That’s a relief. I was worried I was losing my touch.” The lock clicked open, and she whistled appreciatively. “Sing to me, Muse, of the man of twists and turns.” 
“The Odyssey? Really?” Trent was secretly delighted that he was no longer the only one pretentious enough to quote classics during a field op. Or Casablanca in Casablanca, even.
She winked at him. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Her name was Coralie Chénier, though they called her “the Owl”. Trent used to envy her this; everyone, despite his best efforts, referred to him as “Chester’s boy”. Then came the Cuba incident, which was such a bloodbath that it earned Trent the moniker “the Jackal”. After that he decided monikers were overrated. At least they matched: the Owl and the Jackal.
Coralie was an orphan – the service preferred either orphans, or those to the manor born, like Trent – and so for the ten years they spent in the field, he was the closest thing she had to next of kin. It was him she told first about Cleis.
“The father?”
She waved a hand dismissively – not in the picture, then. She did not say who it was. Trent knew it to be a crowded field.
“Are you keeping it?”
“I shouldn’t, should I? It’ll take me out of the field for a good stretch.” But he already knew, from the way she rested her hand over her still-flat stomach, that she would.
“I could marry you, if you liked,” he offered.
She laughed. “That’s the sweetest thing any man has ever said to me, darling. But I think I’ll be just fine.”
The last thing she said to him, before she pulled out her comm and charged back into a building rigged with explosives, was: “Promise me you’ll look after her.”
“There must be another way – ”
“I’ve got to do this, Trent,” she said, too gently. “Make sure she knows how much I loved her. All Croesus’ kingdom.”
“I promise – ” but by then she was already gone. 
“I’m sorry,” says Ted, bringing Trent back to the present. His hand tightens on the shoulder of Coralie’s daughter. 
“Thank you,” he says, for lack of anything better.
“Heck of a poem,” Ted adds. 
“Oh yes,” says Trent. I wouldn’t take all Croesus’ kingdom with love thrown in, for her.
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candysharkart · 1 year ago
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me n techh have been working on our op co-captains who now years later both have names; odd (me) and even (he)
odd is a particularly small and weak shark fishman, with a devil fruit (siren? fish-fish manipulated into a betta fish appearance) that makes him look like a pretty convincing mermaid in half-form. he has not found much utility in this. water still affects him like other fruit users but his former "captain" (unnamed grey fishman) figured out a liquid cocktail of "barely counts as water" lets him at least kinda float around
even is half human/half ??? (psst. its alien) with a devil fruit that lets him divide himself into more hims. his crew is just made up of him. (until odd) downside is that each division slices off more size and knowledge until hes like. a himbo matryoshka. currently mostly divides up to 4 times (with one him that wont come back) each him has a different piece of his personality
still very wip for both but we love 2 have fun lol
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the-east-art · 6 months ago
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Ode to the Tree Lightning Struck - Wip part 3
Joey drives, Ness takes shotgun, and Sylvin sits in the backseat. It’s somehow more uncomfortable than the last time Sylvin recalls sitting here - sometime during the mad dash to resummon Arakiel to Sylvin before a demon could find her as an open vessel. Probably a year and a half ago now, give or take. The seats are made up of cheap faux-leather - which is to say plastic - that’s cracking and peeling in places. The car is an old Nissan that’s still kicking probably due to prayers - in fact, now that Sylvin is thinking about it, maybe due to prayers specifically to Arakiel. Joey and Ness don’t have a lot of money, and Sylvin is unsure if they have the knowledge required to keep the junker alive as long as it has been. It feels a little ironic that the hunters of supernatural phenomena drive around in a car that is basically a zombie, only living off of parts taken from different, newer models. 
Sylvin considers sharing the idea to the others, but the air of the car is still thick with tension and unwelcoming to Sylvin and any conversation she might bring. This discomfort is of her own creation. Some part of her wanted this outcome, but sitting in the silence of the car trying not to make the plastic squeak too loudly when she moves to adjust her position, that desire feels very far away. 
She alternates picking at the plastic of the seat and the loose threads from the holes in her jeans. They were a little big on her, and the bra a little small, and none of it was really her style, but clothes were clothes. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and Sylvin certainly felt like a beggar right now. No phone on her - she had the vague impression that it hadn’t ‘traveled’ well with Arakiel over the last four years, or that Arakiel just hadn’t seen a reason to keep track of it. No wallet either - she hadn’t had her purse on her when Arakiel had taken her as her vessel, so it was who knows where by now. Just her luck she’d look into her bank when she got a chance and find out her identity had been stolen EVEN MORE than it had by Arakiel and now she was in debt or something. 
In the front seat, Joey adjusts the music on her phone and her places it back in the ‘speaker’ - a glass cup that sits in the cup holder as a makeshift way to amplify the sound. It makes each of the songs adopt a tinny quality to them. 
The progress east was a combination of both reasons Sylvin had hypothesized: a mixture short days driving and a meandering direction. It felt like they were on some kind of a victory lap after saving the world - checking up on different people the pair had crossed paths with over the last four years. It made a kind of sense - see who was still kicking, pay respect to those who had died, and make sure that everyone that had been involved in the shitstorm knew that it was over.
Didn’t make Sylvin like it though. 
It made her feel like a child, being toted around by her parents and forced to sit off awkwardly on the sidelines while she was introduced to strangers. The entire affair was a lot like family reunions or church - back when Sylvin and her siblings would all stand slightly behind her mom, waiting for her to be done chatting about keylime pie recipes or whatever it was the moms discussed in church parking lots while their kids baked in the sun, reflecting off the dark asphalt. Those were the only instances where Sylvin actually envied the crazy Sunday hats the grandma’s wore. Sylvin and her three siblings would usually end up standing like dominos or some bizarre version of matryoshka dolls - line up so they were standing in eachothers shadows for at least a small reprieve from the heat. Atlas the unfortunate tallest of the bunch, bore the sunlight on his own. Or alternatively ran around the parking lot as a moving target, preventing the rest of them from using his shade. 
Just today they’d met up with 3 different people and 3 gravesites. Only one of the cemeteries had been planned - someone, a civilian, who had died on a job three years ago. The other two had been new deaths. A fellow hunter, vampire got the best of them. The other someone they had saved from the jaws of death already, took care of a poltergeist that had been hounding them. Didn’t matter - dead now - car crash. Bad luck. 
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aetherealmoss · 5 months ago
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wip wednesday
its not wednesday anymore but @heartbreakincident tagged me and i tag whoever sees this <3
this is actually a part of a request/idea my friend @holysxxb gave me :) ive been writing it very slowly but it is bein written
Jason Todd knows fear. Knows it intimately, not too far off from how he knows his middle, from how he knows the shape of his helmet, strips it down to his mask, to the shape of his face, a matryoshka of identities that he knows.
Fear is much the same, just a shape of feelings that Jason buries in his soft underbelly and pushes past and doesn’t show the world.
Bruce Wayne—Batman strips him of his ability, his years of work, his countless achievements, strips him of his need to deal with his own fear, at the tip of his fingertips, never past it, never more than it should be. Never freezing.
He’s freezing now, he finds. Trembling hands, heightened heartbeats, staring at two of his brothers tied together, above a bubbling vat of something or another. Acidic, if Jason had to wager a guess.
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gwaedhannen · 10 months ago
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Last line/thought
Tagged by @that-angry-noldo to share the last line of a WIP and/or the last bit of thinking I've done of a WIP. Doing both because I'm an overachiever. Or something.
This is from my SWG Meet & Greet Matryoshka challenge, which is about the aftereffects of Celebrían's departure on Rivendell and its people. Though this one is a flashback to her first visit to the valley:
Celeborn releases the blur to share a warrior’s handshake with his son and a tender kiss and forehead touch with his wife, and Elrond finds himself facing—
And what I was thinking:
There's gotta be better phrasing than "a forehead touch". (help?)
Well now that I've introduced Celebrían to Elrond I actually need to describe what his first impressions are.
She's wearing Galadhrim archer gear which is a surprise to him because Celeborn was so proud that he was able to raise his daughter with no need for her to be a soldier or healer.
Hmm I should probably figure out her personality.
And then that got me sidetracked to thinking about the perpetual Celebrían In Valinor WIP and how her personality changes to become so bitter after the trauma and why that might be:
She's fucking angry (at the orcs, at Elladan and Elrohir for not rescuing her sooner, at Elrond because he couldn't fully heal her, at Elrond for not sailing with her, at Gil-galad for giving Elrond the ring that kept him from sailing with her, at Celebrimbor for making said ring, at her parents and Arwen for something or other, and most of all at herself for thinking so poorly of her family and friends and for being so weak and for leaving and for not dying and for not fading and and and) and the self-loathing and lashing out is the only way she feels she can express it.
If she thinks she's a different person now (she was beautiful but now she's scarred and disfigured, she was a crafter but now her fingers are shattered, she was a hunter but now she can't stand unfamiliar noises in the woods, she was affectionate but now she can't stand to be touched, she was kind but now she's cruel) then all those horrible things didn't happen to her, they happened to someone else.
Except as the physical trauma continues to heal (Finarfin and the other local doctors were very impressed with Elrond's work), all she has left to separate Before Celebrían from After Celebrían is how her mind and personality changed.
She's been in permanent Survival Mode ever since she was knocked off her horse and doesn't know how (doesn't want) to get out. And when she finally does and can start processing things and try "to learn to be a person again instead of a collection of coping mechanisms" as I've seen it put—ahahaha it's gonna suck.
And as the unofficial subtitle of this work is "The First Age Gang team up to practice psychiatry on their collectively-adopted daughter", this is where Maedhros (and maybe some combination of Finrod, Gwindor again, and Elwing?) shows up.
Oh geez that's a lot more thoughts than I planned when I started typing this. Also I have no real idea how trauma recovery works; I'm just winging it and should probably do some research before I write something dumb.
I think pretty much every author I follow has been tagged by someone else, so open tag for whomever wants!
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bedlamsbard · 1 year ago
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“The soldier,” Thanos said. He flinched a little as one of Natasha’s widow’s stings hit him in the side of the head, but brushed it off as if it was nothing more than a mosquito bite. “The man out of…time.”
Thanos let the last word linger there between them. The Stones set across his knuckles glittered in the fading sunlight as he turned his left hand over, thoughtful.
He was a kid playing with a new toy, the kind of boy who burned the wings off flies with a magnifying glass and a sunbeam. Steve knew the exact instant Thanos realized he could use more than one of the Stones at the same time.
March 1945: With the deaths of Johann Schmidt and Steve Rogers only a month old, the SSR has spent the intervening weeks hunting down the last of Hydra’s holdouts. When Peggy Carter and the Howling Commandos are unexpectedly called back to London, however, the return of Steve Rogers from beyond the grave raises more questions than it answers – and draws the attention of a dangerous new enemy.  (Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanoff)
Previous: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
11: In the Woods 135K, AU, WIP
Chapter preview:
For a long moment Lebedev just stared at Steve, his expression blank. Steve met his gaze, letting everything that he was and everything he had seen show on his face.  He’d faced down gods without blinking; a couple of Soviet commandos who had gotten too big for their britches was nothing. He saw the moment when Lebedev remembered what Steve was, that he was something other than the annoyance they had been sent away from the front to retrieve.  He’d seen enough during their joint missions to know that Captain America was something more than propaganda and a shiny star. “Kolya, get out there with the dolls and search the perimeter,” he ordered, turning to look over his shoulder at the other two commandos remaining in the room; the matryoshka they had been playing cards with had left at some point.  “Dima, the drug –” Bukharin produced the leather wallet and pulled out a syringe, a hypodermic needle, and a fresh vial full of viscous-looking liquid.  As he fit them all together, Lebedev walked a wide circle around Steve until he could get behind him, obviously with the intention of holding him still while Bukharin stuck him.  A gesture brought Ursus over, warily circling Steve’s other side so that he couldn’t watch all three of them at the same time. Steve flexed his wrists in the manacles, sending pain shooting up into his bad shoulder, then tested the restraints on his legs again.  This was going to go poorly for someone, but he didn’t intend for it to be him.
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the-stray-storyteller · 1 year ago
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hi, this is probably late, but happy STS!
if your WIPs characters had to travel to real world countries, which ones would they be and why? what kind of adventures would they have? what havoc would they wreak at the airport?
Shall we ignore the fact that it is not a saturday?
Thankyou.
WIP: Rebel
I read this question wrong and started writing the wrong answer at first so I had to delete the whole thing to rewrite it.
Dec would definitely drag them to Brazil for the Carnival.
May would love to go to Sri Lanka, the place looks so peaceful to her.
Nov would go to Russia just to buy Matryoshka Dolls. He is petty like that.
THEY WOULD CAUSE SO MUCH HAVOC IN THE AIRPORT.
Nov would be going into every fucking shop and delaying everybody. May would fall asleep somewhere and no one would be able to find her. Dec would be trying to get them to the plane in time but then she would forget the luggage somewhere and would have to run back. All of them would get caught in the security check at least twice. The dog would attack Nov. They would all loose their way and all of them would be too fucking anxious to ask for help from anybody. They would get onto the wrong flight and it would basically be Murphy's law.
Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
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mareastrorum · 9 months ago
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random fic question: what is part of a recent WIP you've found most challenging?
Oh man, that is such a bullseye question.
I'm working on an AU scene of the Mighty Nein on Darktow. In the most recent chapter, the Nein did not steal Avantika's journal in the night when Nott and Jester rummaged through the captain's quarters. Of course, if the Nein didn't get caught, then there's no dramatic fight against Avantika at dawn, and they aren't exiled right away. There is a different type of confrontation, and Fjord's arc starts to develop in a modified way.
The most challenging part of it is sorting out what Fjord would have done in reaction to learning more about Vandran and Sabian at that point in the story instead of episode 141. Early campaign Fjord is a matryoshka doll of identities, and he had so much to deal with already. He is more vulnerable and angry at this time. His imposter syndrome is a huge facet of his problems.
Fjord has not encountered another half-orc like he does in Rosohna, so no one has yet called him out on how he's dealing poorly with his mixed identity. He has not shown genuine interest in the Wildmother and only recently met Caduceus. He has not rejected Uk'otoa and has not been threatened with a loss of power. The Nein have not gone so far as to stand by him when he thought he lost everything. He has not fallen in love with Jester and started a relationship. He hasn't saved the Empire or the Dynasty, let alone the world. There's another 30ish episodes before he truly feels like he has a stable foundation with the Nein, so fast-forwarding this type of reveal is devastating, and it's smack in the middle of Darktow.
That's especially challenging to write in a satisfactory way when Fjord's arc also has significance in the overarching AU. Getting the climax of this phase of his arc right is very important to me. I'm making progress on it, but it's a lot of work. I'm excited for when it's finally ready to post.
Thanks for the ask! I feel called out and appreciative in equal measure.
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illegally-blind-and-deaf · 1 year ago
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Writing Poll Game
Rules: make a 24-hour poll with the names of your WIP's and then whichever one wins, write one sentence for every vote it gets.
WILL DO GLADLY
@lorrow2 @friendofthefellowshipsnerdblog @falloutchemicalday @gracemeadow @kaslynspeaks @laneynoir @allerkaereste if you don't have any WIPS that's ok you don't have to do it
Also OPEN TAG
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herbertwest · 2 years ago
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RULES: post the names of the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! Tag as many people as you have WIPs.
Tagged by @georgestraitpridemonth
OOF OKAY. I have so, so many WIPs I'm not listing all of them. Here's a selection of some of the ones I can find (they're scattered around), minus the Top Secret novels.
Feel free to send asks about these, they're fun.
Nightmare Hunting
Wend's Folly
Boar
James Coven
Matryoshka
Possession
The Doctors
The Stone Angel
This is Not a Test
Willoughby Goes to Eurovision
Aurora Angelus
Medusa's Snake Oil
The Haunting of Christine's Craft Corner
Ginger Isn't Here
Martin in Love
Mithridatism
worgled
Yoyo
Zerzetsung
A Delphi of Oracles
Death Document
Wisdom Teeth
are you spicy
Dreams in the Witch RV
How Samuel Eldritch Brought About the End of the World and What Happened After
Monster Collector
Saint of Thorns
You in the Forest
I'm absolutely not tagging this many people, so if you want to do this, consider yourself tagged by me.
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withlovelunette · 2 years ago
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Matryoshka Doll & Wooden Soldiers (WIP title)
— A Nutcracker Retelling
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Genre: Fairytale retelling, adult fiction, speculative fiction.
Setting: Wintery, early 19th century Germany, Russia & other culturally-inspired fantasy settings with a touch of steampunk.
Summary: Clara Stahlbaum is forced to prematurely shelf her ballet career after a severe injury. Feeling lost and alone, the former ballerina leaves the comfort of her home in the countryside to visit the city and help her godfather run his toy shop while she recovers from her mental strife. After encountering a peculiar stranger with wooden hands who speaks of a fairy that can undo all injuries and ailments, Clara is pulled into a plot of curses, tragedy and lost personhood.
Themes: Identity & self worth, loss of humanity, defying fate, vengeance and repressed emotions, hints of unhinged womanhood if you squint.
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Introduction & Context
Matryoshka Doll & Wooden Soldiers is a retelling and slight reconstruction of the beloved story The Nutcracker & the Mouse King, taking partial inspiration from the ballet, but is otherwise mostly based on Hoffmann’s original 1816 novel! I’ve been deeply infatuated with this story ever since I watched the animated movie by GoodTimes Entertainment (please tell me someone else watched this as a kid) and the Barbie version when I was little. I’ve since read the original book and been wanting to reconstruct the story into something new! Everything in this post is very much a WIP and subject to change as I develop the story, as it’s still in its first draft!
Inspirations & Vibes
Tchaikovsky’s music and the ballet (naturally), powdered snow, sweet Turkish delight, hot steam from the locomotive swirling in the crisp winter air, scent of gingerbread and mulled wine with cinnamon, winter wonderlands and peppermint candy canes, pastel baroque & rococo aesthetics, white marble with specks of blood, loss of humanity and sense of self, tragic romance, whimsical inventions, old fashioned toy shops filled with wonder, out of tune music box and other antique trinkets, freshly baked Berliner buns, the gritty and dark hiding beneath the prim and proper, prickling fingers on thorns while picking berries.
Main Characters
Clara Stahlbaum (23) she/her
Burnt out gifted kid filled with longing and passions she can no longer pursue, a romantic posing as a cynic to protect her feelings, loves messing with little trinkets and antiques and is kinda a nerd.
Hans Peter (25) he/him
Stoic, intellectualises his feelings, detached yet slightly vain, charming until you realise he’s not aloof for allure’s sake he’s just kinda socially awkward, but hey maybe that’s charming to some.
Godfather Drosselmeyer (52) he/him
Eccentric, mischievous, a bit sketchy but people brush him off as just a quirky old man, secretive, knows a lot and yet literally no one in the city knows anything about him he just showed up one day.
I might make a deep dive post about these characters to go into their psychology and development if that’s something people would be interested in! Deconstructing a character’s psyche is one of my favourite aspects of writing and I’d love to be able to share it. Also I know this seems very heteronormative as a story but I promise there are queer themes brewing beneath the surface here I would die otherwise.
✦ If you’d like to be added to a tag list for future writing updates/excerpts, please let me know! 
Story Tag; #md&ws
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daisywords · 2 years ago
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switching between wips like inhabiting various layers of the matryoshka doll of all my different selves
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