#and giv a little preview of what stories might be coming up next

[moonshine-nightlight]

Potential Short Stories

hey, while looking to next year, i have a number of short stories I'm considering and i'd like to gauge y'alls interest in them and see if there are any that should move up my list.

these are all just the top ideas i'm considering at the moment and are subject to change when i get back to writing in Spring 2024, but i really want to know if any of these grabs ppls attention as often more interest in a story motivates me to write more!

see under the read more for summaries of each story in the poll

if ur interested in more than one, vote for your favorite and mention the others in the comments/tags!

See this post for a poll on short vs long stories!

See this post for a poll on long stories!

see below for summaries and minor details (titles subject to change - but i'm also lazy and hate titling things so maybe not)

Courtship Confusion: You’ve been working with Morgan for a couple years. A consummate flirt, you’d initially been put off by his whole charming deal, but now that he’s your best friend you’ve been wanting to see if he’s still interested in dating you. Unfortunately he’s not picking up your hints. Before you give up, a pair of visiting concubi remind you of cultural differences when it comes to dating. Maybe you’ve both been misunderstanding each other. Maybe it’s time you set the record straight.

Modern w/known non-humans, ReaderxMaleSiren

Quid Pro Quo: You’d thought the only remotely positive about your husband’s death would be that you wouldn’t need to deal with your terrible in-laws anymore. Then you found out that demons were real and your husband’s family had made a deal decades ago trapping all their descendants in service to one. You manage to set up your own deal with a different demon: if you help Adriel figure out who is embezzling from his realm spanning organization, he’ll help you figure out how to get your kids free of the contract. After hitting dead end after dead end, you finally think you’re both getting somewhere, but will it be enough?

Modern w/secret demons; ReaderxMaleDemon

Goddaughter: You thought you’d seen the last of your family when you left—you’d certainly done everything you could to cut ties with them and with your father’s enemies. Unfortunately, they finally seem to have caught up with you—running into you by chance in the grocery store of all places. Now you and your daughter have been captured, you’re tied up while they’ve taken her who knows where, your father is just as useless at protecting you as always. Then you hear a familiar voice. What on earth is your neighbor, Vee, doing here? Why does he know your father? And why does he sound positively…demonic?

Modern w/secret demons; ReaderxMaleDemon

Bedwarmer: When you heard your Chancellor had died in battle and his lands given to a mountain orc who’d practically won the battle singlehandedly, you weren’t sure what to think. When the steward put out the call for a bedwarmer for said new Chancellor, you figured species didn’t matter much after all—powerful people were all the same. Still, the role came with a year reduction in indenture for whoever was selected from the candidates. You’ve never had any problem with no strings attached sex so you add yourself to the list. It’s not until you meet this Kor’Shearda and are chosen that you begin to realize how wrong you were.

Fantasy w/known non-humans; ReaderxFemaleOrc

Runalong: Sometimes you feel like you’ve spent your whole life on the move. Shuffled from one place to the next with no real say in the matter. Is it any wonder that on those long car rides from somewhere that just started to become familiar to somewhere brand new and unknown that you might imagine a companion along side you? And what does it mean that now you’re an adult and you still think you see them sometimes?

Modern w/unknown non-humans; ReaderxGNSpirit

Feral: You’ve been so happy living on your own in the little house you inherited, you didn’t even mind the strange stipulations in the will about hanging plants and markings on fence posts. You were never particularly superstitious. Or you weren’t. Strange noises at night, eyes that glow, tracks around the porch—it’s all starting to freak you out. What could be lurking in the shadows of your yard? Is it all your imagination? Or does something—someone—mean you harm?

Modern w/unknown non-humans; ReaderxFemaleHellhound

[woodys]

I feel like it’s important right now that i’m typing. I’m not sure where this post is going to go and what i’m going to say, how disturbing it might get but for the first time in the longest while I have this need to park myself and type. This godforsaken site is called a blogging site so I guess, just this once, I’m going to sit here and for the first time in all my years of being on it—use it as one. Is this a post i’m proud of? No, I already know it’s not. But at the same time I think the only person i’m writing it for is for myself. My future self. For her to come back and read. To see how lucky and how strong she is, maybe serve as a reminder of how far she’s come whenever she remembers i’ve left this here for her to read. Because it’s something that happened and something I don’t think i’m afraid of anymore. Something I should be open about and something I shouldn’t repress. Because if I hadn’t been open about it at some point, I wouldn’t be here to type it for anyone to read.

December 17 was the day I was supposed to die. Monday December 17, 2018. That’s what I wanted my obituaries to say. That’s what I wanted my gravestone to say. It was the day I hyperfixated on for about three weeks and to me it was perfect in every way. When it came it was a beautiful day, the weather just ideal. Much like it had been three months back on the date, also Monday, September 17th, when my mom started the eternal rest that came sooner than she deserved. Our dates would be just alike. Just like when we matched the same outfits when I was smaller. It was something that would connect us again in a infinite day. That was supposed to be my day to go. 

I did research on what I wanted more than I wish I ever had. I had my options, all of them as painless as possible. I was counting down and for awhile just to reflect I started to keep track of one thing a day i’d miss or that I was grateful for. By the last week that fell to the wayside because it was like I had nothing left. Everything seemed against me. I felt like I was fighting this big bad world alone having to front a smile and be the person I used to be. I’ve been so tired. I’ve got no energy. By Wednesday I think I had thrown in the towel. I went to the nail shop the next day and it almost felt as if I was prepping myself for everyone else. At least my nails would look great (mom was about to get hers done) and my hair is styled in the way people normally saw me (mom’s wasn’t. she had plans to take her braids down just the next week). Sunday rolls around with what felt like the fatal blow, final straw, I was just ready to clock out at midnight on Monday Eastern time. It was midnight somewhere I thought. 

When i’ve seen people go through things like this, at least online, it looks....it looks entirely like a joke. And I do, think that there are people out there that throw these thoughts and feelings around online just to get the attention, just to snatch a moment of pity and kindness out of people. That’s why I was set on keeping the act until the day of. Being the sunny, cheery, positive disposed person everyone I interact know me as. I came into this year with a high head. I was hopeful. I was ready to do big things. But as the year went on the bad piled on and on. But I still fought! That was my thing. My shoulders were heavy but i’d keep fighting on. At any point of the year I could turn all of it around and own it. 8 is my favorite number after all. 2018 was supposed to be a good one. 

But then I went to sleep one night....and woke up to a world without my mom...my last surviving parent. The woman who raised me on her own, who was worried about me constantly, who gave the best hugs, and got on my nerves but it had always been the two of us. I still can’t believe i’m moving and living in a world that she’s no longer in. You just don’t come out of that like a champ. You can’t walk away from something like that as a champ. I tried to fight like I know she would’ve liked me to. Be myself. Try to do the things I normally did. I tried to honor her in all the ways I could but as each 17th hit I just got weaker and weaker. And i’m still so frail. The next month i’ll be in a new year without her. I didn’t want to go into the new one without her. I still don’t. 

And while I sat in my kitchen, minutes after midnight, crying so hard I don’t even think my eyes felt opened, with my phone in hand I just felt it all. I always read that people who get this point feel nothing at all...well I felt everything all at once. And I know that’s mostly because that’s who I am as a person. I care so much, I love so much. I love more than I need to. I love those who don’t deserve it. I love and care about people who do me wrong in and out and I want nothing more than to see them well and happy regardless. I just wanted to stop feeling. I’m so tired of feeling. Especially feeling everything. Feeling that I have to smile, that I have to answer that i’m okay and pretend to be okay when I haven’t been. I remember thinking ‘I feel too much to be loved so little’ over, over, and over again. Mom’s so lucky she doesn’t have to feel anymore. Feel or be tired or worry about anyone. I wanted that. For someone like me, it seemed only ideal.

Though, I know in the littlest speck deep down, I didn’t want to go. When I went to the movies that Sunday I cried at nearly every preview, thinking about about all the movies that I wouldn’t see. All the songs I wouldn’t hear and fall in love with and all the games i’d never get to play. I looked at the two pieces of my artwork on the wall and thought about how I wouldn’t create anymore. Not that I have in about a year or so, because its been a deeper battle to find that love again but...I’d never see myself improve how I wanted. I felt all of this too while I cried in the kitchen that night. While a good friend of mine talked to me about all the things i’d miss out on I felt all of it. Was I really satisfied with just having lived to see the trailer to Toy Story 4? You laugh, but that’s just how much that series means to me. And now that i’m in better mind, a semi-better heart, I can answer that no. No I would’ve missed out entirely.

It’s really a miracle I got through the 17th. It’s a miracle because I felt I was ready to say goodbye. I thought I was doing everyone I knew a favor to just disappear with no warning, no trace. I didn’t feel important. I still don’t feel important to any cause. I saw first hand how people rallied to love at my mom’s funeral and it’s so sad. How the living never know how much they’re loved until they’re laying in their casket. I wish mom knew how many people overflowed that hall for her funeral. Friends old and new and all the good things they said. I wish she could’ve known it all when she was alive. But that day, the people who knew my plan, reached out to me. People I cared about young and old stood with me through that day, buzzing my phone throughout. One friend sent me pictures of bunnies. Another of her cat. Another one just made me smile by just reminding me that she was thinking of me while my best friend just checked in. I got to show my friends Toy Story shorts they hadn’t seen. And I laughed at Toy Story 2 right into midnight of the 18th. I broke down afterward though. It felt like I had shoved aside a huge hurdle. All of it wasn’t the attention I asked for. It’s not the attention I wanted, even. It’s not attention that i’m proud to be getting. But all of it was acts of love. How could I just deny the effort of so many people that are fighting hard to keep me alive, reminding me that i’ve never been alone when I was ready to give up. Reminding me of the good things life has to offer. Be it their pets, your favorite scene, the things that make you laugh. Relationships i’ve created all on my own that i’d leave behind forever.

So i’m sitting here a day past my death date now reflecting on what i’ve been going through. If I had died that day I wouldn’t have seen my best friend laughing at some ridiculous internet catfish story that he got himself caught up in. I wouldn’t have enjoyed pancakes. I wouldn’t have heard about my best friend enjoying her goodies in the package I’d sent in the mail. I would’ve missed out on the good new soundtracks I own. I would’ve missed singing along to some old favorite songs from one of my favorite movies. 

Am I okay? No. I’m not. I’m furthest from okay right now and that’s okay. It’s okay to answer that i’m not fine instead of saying I am. It’s okay not to be happy all the time. No one expects that from me so I shouldn’t expect it from myself anymore. But I will be okay soon. I want to be. I’m not my grief and i’m a warrior. I can’t forget the people who love me and the promises i’ve made. All the movies i’ve got to see from Toothless to how badly Sonic does next November. One day I hope the 17 just becomes a sad number, and not a date I think of dying. Most importantly, I hope one day I tell my mom about everything I did after she fell asleep. The last day we were together she asked me what my goals were. I haven’t even started working toward them yet. I can’t disappoint her by having nothing to tell her when she gets to ask me again. 

Time and patience are said to heal all wounds, so I hope that it fix up this scar of mine. I still never imagined i’d be here. I never imagined i’d stare at death so close to the face and I guess that’s why i’m putting it all pen to paper. Well, figuratively. If someone I know closer to me found this and read it who knows what would happen. 

There’s no way in my lifetime i’ll be able to thank the people who stopped me even if they know they did or not. Everyday now is a day I could’ve missed out on and what I almost missed seeing. I beat the boss fight of the 17th. Now it’s just going at that final boss on the 31st. From here on out I want to do all that I can to just make it there and see the end of this (excuse my language) goddamned hell of a fucking year. Even if I can’t give my 100% i’ll try at 50. If I can’t do 50, i’ll try 25. I just can’t give up. 

And while i’m still not proud that I got this close, i’m proud that i’m still standing. I’m proud to wake up and just try even if the odds are against me. I’m proud to still be able to respond to my friends and tell them I love them day in and day out. I’m so proud of me for making it through even when I felt like I couldn’t.

I’m so proud to still be alive.