#arye the hack writer

[socialmediasocrates]

WIP Intro: Where the Sun Sleeps

Title: Where the Sun Sleeps Genre: new adult, dark romance, urban fantasy Themes: love and loss, identity, romantic love as redemption and delusion Warnings: violence, toxic relationship(s), implied grooming, implied self-harm, stalking, general dark content Status: first draft

Characters and summary under the cut

CHARACTERS

Dalton Emetris

“You looked in Dalton’s eyes and saw the anglerfish behind them. The ambush predator that lured people in with the soft black curls and freckles and easy smiles. His lips never fully pulled back from those too-sharp teeth. Not until that last moment, when the monster melted away and what was left was painfully human, eyes wide and mouth a little agape. His hand clutched at open air. He took a little, stumbling step forward and croaked, “Shae? What’s wrong?”“

Shae Bertrand

“What was there to say, except that he’d been painfully normal? He was an only child. His parents were older, one a professor of literature at the same university he’d been attending, the other a restauranteur. His life had been quiet, and safe, composed of very average vacations and long stretches of late nights doing his homework in the office at his mother’s restaurant. And then he’d met Dalton, and it all kind of went to shit from there. Things often did when Dalton got involved.”

Zel

“The person in the window looked human in a loose sense, as long as you didn’t think about it too much. The eyes were the right size and shape, but a little too blue on one side and far too brown on the other. The teeth were mostly right, but looked like they remembered being longer and sharper. Also, they were using those teeth to eat entire strips of raw bacon. There was that. Couldn’t be worse than Dalton, Shae decided, and let them into the apartment.”

Summary

In Shae’s first year at university, he bonded very strongly with his roommate: theater major and melodrama-monger Dalton Emetris. Awkward first meetings where nobody knew which bed was theirs aside, the two quickly became inseparable. And then a little more than inseparable. The closer they got, though, the more Dalton withdrew. There was clearly something he was keeping from Shae.

That “something” turned out to be “actually being a vampire”. Despite Dalton’s best efforts, Shae found out. And he didn’t take it well.

One messy breakup and bar crawl later, Shae wakes up in a warehouse in the Undercity, newly transformed and dependent on the other new-borns for survival. It doesn’t take a genius to know Dalton is responsible, but he helpfully confirms this himself. Now trapped in a loop of the last week of his life, Shae is forced to join forces with cannibal-adjacent shapeshifter Zel in his quest to convince Dalton to terminate the loop and set them all free. But neither of them knows what waits at the end of the time loop.

It might actually be worse than Dalton.

Taglist

Don’t have one at the moment! Lmk if you wanna be added

Bonus snippet:

He paused his pacing without really looking to open the window for Zel, and then stopped in his tracks at the smell. Copper and iron and chocolate and a very specific cologne. Blood. Zel was sitting on the window frame chewing on some sort of rib (too long to be human, gods be good) when he turned to them. Just...a single rib. Raw and dripping blood down their arm and on the floorboards of his shitty apartment. 

 "I thought you were trying to be a vegetarian?" he asked blandly. 

"I am." They followed his line of sight to the rib in their hands. "What do you want me to do, unkill the cow?" 

"You could cook it." 

"That's disgusting."

[socialmediasocrates]

I just saw this so please forgive me.

I have GP’s on Mulberry, an on-going series of shorts focusing on Toni Martinez’s job at a local diner that’s become a hot spot for the city’s more supernatural residents. Working as the night cook alongside sketchy coworker, Devon, Toni meets and befriends these supernatural guests, and walks away with a few pretty fun college job stories. Main relationships are the friendship between Toni, Devon, and their assorted customers, particularly a coffee-loving vampire named Reggie.

The less-posted-about Where the Sun Sleeps is an urban fantasy romp wherein newly turned vampire Shae harnesses the power of painful normality to track down the vampire that sired him and punch him in the dick. Along the way, Shae falls ass over ears into a conspiracy involving dragons, witches, and a very very cool shapeshifter named Zel. Shapeshifting dragon girlfriends, a melodramatic asshole villain, and BFFs Shae and Zel just trying to figure out how life works.

okay writeblr it’s been a bit since i’ve done one of these but please use this post to tell me about your wip!

i’m especially interested in urban fantasy & contemporary. bonus points for LGBT rep & a focus on friendship! (extra bonus points if you’re a smaller account, i’d love to help boost your work!)

feel free to reply with links, blurbs, mood boards, art, or anything your heart desires! i’ll be boosting this post throughout the weekend. :)

[socialmediasocrates]

An excerpt from Where the Sun Sleeps? In this, the year of our lord 2021? It’s more likely than you think.

Transcript under the cut: 

“Oh, Shae.” He hated the way Dalton’s mouth formed around his name, breathed through slightly parted lips like it was a trapped bird that might otherwise escape. He hated the open yearning in Dalton’s eyes. Mostly he hated remembering when he liked the way his chest squeezed at it all. “This gets so exhausting. The way I give you space with your choices and then you make all the wrong ones.”

“End the loop, then, you fucker,” he spat, both figuratively and literally. “End it.”

“What, and let you go?” Dalton’s fingers were ice on his cheeks. They burned and ached, and his traitorous heart lapped it all up. Ice gave way to fire. Something cracked then melted. Oh, no, that was just tears. Shae was crying, and Dalton looked fascinated by it. “You know I can’t do that, Shae.”

“You could.” Add that to the list of things Shae hated: the crack and waver in his own voice. “You could.”

“I really couldn’t. It doesn’t work like that. One more loop?”

No, he wanted to scream. He wanted to snap Dalton’s fingers like icicles on his porch when spring came. He wanted to rip those poisonous, yearning eyes out of his skull. He wanted to dig his fingers into those curls and yank them out and take his whole scalp with it.

He nodded.

“One more loop.”

[socialmediasocrates]

ok but i like legit really like this little section of Even Hell Dreams of Spring that’s like super early on

I stopped by her house. I didn’t go inside, I ended up just standing on the porch for a while. It didn’t feel the same, knowing that Rose and her family are gone. I don’t know why this is taking so long to all hit me. It’s like getting punched in the chest over and over when someone promised to only do it once. One really hard punch and they’re done. But then they decide to go for a bunch of softer punches, instead but there’s more of them so they hurt worse.

We pinky promised to do everything together. I don’t even know who broke it, Rose by dying or me by living. I’m still here, and she’s not, and I know I owe it to her to keep going, but I ended up going home and crawling in bed...

[socialmediasocrates]

lmfao the moon must be blue i’m posting wtss content

transcript under the cut

there are no gods. maybe there once were. maybe when the cosmos rested in the cradle of creation, they were shaped by dozens of careful, meticulous craftsmen's hands. or maybe they are more of a fragile glass marble, flicked across hardwood floors carelessly by a child until they hit a dusty bedpost and shatter into glorious ruination, quickly forgotten but glittering in the dark nonetheless. they may have died, or faded, or even become mortal when their great working was done. maybe the first man to walk upright was the lonely creator, joining his creation in its endless march unto eternity. perhaps there were gods once, but now there are none. and in the void where divinity was meant to reside, there is only death. death is no god, either. it was born when the first living thing reached its end, and it will one day return all of creation to the void that it first came from, and then the cycle will start again. life in all its diversity, and death in its grim singularity, perpetually becoming and unbecoming. life will take myriad forms, and death will walk as each and every one of them. there is a story that says the sun-stealer, trickster that he is, was the one fooled death into making that deal. until it has walked as every single form that life takes, it cannot walk on earth as itself. it cannot bring forth the end until it understands what it is ending. it will be a human last. it is a goat now. goats do not name themselves, but its human calls it gemini.

taglist: @crtalley

[socialmediasocrates]

time to write an entire thing about how there are no gods in wtss there is only gemini the goat

[socialmediasocrates]

New wip idea: superhero story where the MC has 2hrs left to live before they have to deactivate their power, which is keeping them alive, and they're rushing to capture the villain that will have inevitably killed them

[socialmediasocrates]

CW for discussion of the blood father's unsavory relationship with Dalton under the cut

In wtss drinking blood from another vampire is taboo. It's an intimate act, and one that you really only do if you're badly injured and you really trust the other vampire. They don't get an sustenance from it, and being that vulnerable with someone that could really fuck you up means it's not something done casually

Unless you're the Blood Father and you suck

Honestly being sired by the Blood Father is an honor.

Until G and Dalton it was only the eldest among their kind that could claim such prestigious descent. To be reborn through the blood of the First? To have the King of the Dark Sun usher you into the life after life? They should both feel so lucky. For a moment, right after he turned G and before G fell through a hole in the fabric of time and never climbed out, Dalton had been proud of his sibling. And eager.

It would be his turn when he turned 19. He'd known that all his life. Had it drilled into his head that he was fortunate, fortunate, fortunate. A lucky little boy born with a void at the center of him where there should have been a spark of magic.

Pride turns to horror so quickly when there are actually fangs in your throat. You must die before you can be reborn. The Father took a week to kill Dalton, a week bound to a too-soft bed, blindfolded, silk ropes around his wrists that still tore skin and scarred when he thrashed around and tried to escape.

"Dally-boy, you're not being very grateful," the Father had murmured scathingly, and that was all it took for Dalton to fall still.

Vampires are creatures of dark magic. The void in Dalton where magic should have been ached for a resident. That was his power. He could take magic from others. The Father had a pleased little glimmer in his eyes the first time Dalton did it, and it made something in his stomach twist painfully but he smiled and ignored it. This was what he was born for.

This was his purpose.

What could he do but fulfill it?

(Zel is the first that Dalton tells this to. Funnily enough, they don't look very impressed. They even tell him he needs therapy, probably because they spend too much time with Shae.

The bite marks on his neck throb and he promises himself that he'll do that differently, at least. As a Sire, as Shae's Sire. He won't drink from him.

Except he does. But that happens later.)

[socialmediasocrates]

Me: Shae and Dalton are terrible together and Dalton is The Worst

Also me:

[transcript under cut]

Shae's hair was...very soft. Like silk sheets before all the bloodstains. Like kittens and puppies' fur. Soft and fluffy and a pale blonde that Dalton had compared very flatteringly to sunlight before Shae hit him with his pillow and told him to stop being strange. It was also messily cut and uneven all over, and that was driving him nearly insane. "You could go to my barber," he offered, "I'd pay.""I don't believe in paying for haircuts." Shae yawned and leaned into the fingers running through his hair. "In a religious sense.""What?" He stared down at him, certain he'd misheard, but Shae was already halfway to sleep and seemed content to just let that hang there. Like it wasn't going to haunt Dalton's every waking moment for the next week minimum. With little else to do, since he didn't sleep (ah, but he missed it fondly), he braided one of the longer hanks of hair. The one that dangled next to Shae's face like a cat toy. So soft, but so messy, nearly as soft as the kiss Shae pressed to his inner wrist, and nearly as messy as the off-kilter clenching of a heart that didn't beat anymore in its owner's chest. "That's a weird place for a first kiss," Dalton murmured, his voice tight and faltering as the feeling he was struggling with."Where should I have gone? Lips first?" Shae reached up, slowly, clusmily, barely awake if awake at all, and the brush of his thumb against Dalton's bottom lip when he reached it was delicate. Deliberate. Soft as his hair, soft as his kiss, soft as silk sheets around Dalton's wrists, soft as a hissed laugh against his throat, soft as the press of a pillow over his nose, soft as--

[socialmediasocrates]

thinking abt the ending of wtss under the cut bc violence and gore

thinking abt the blood father cradling shae’s still-beating heart in his hands and how serenely he tells dalton and zel that someone is dying today and now they get to pick and also thinking abt zel wondering what would happen to them if they ate the father’s heart and also thinking about zel and fionn reunion like two seconds before fionn dies

and then also thinking abt the witch queen and how she traded her compassion for power and the star child and the exchange of joy for magic and how wtss actually started abt 350 years in the future when an unwilling time traveler brought a blind girl a goat that was actually death incarnate

no i will not be writing fionn and petra-centric novellas do not enable me

[socialmediasocrates]

rambling under the cut abt the various paranormal species of where the sun sleeps and why my vampires are definitely different i promise

the vampires: are basically drug addicts lmao; newly-changed vampires are colloquially called Needlers because well...needles, they’re involved in how they feed, on account of not having fangs yet; fledglings (technically Needlers are new-borns) and full vampires (Sires, Dalton has just reached this point and he was initially turned like 50-odd years ago, and his transition was comparatively quick) are actually sensitive to the content of blood and can indeed get fucked up if they accidentally take a sip off an alcoholic without checking first, some of this do that intentionally (again, Dalton)

the shapeshifters: usually call themselves shifters and are sometimes called changelings in a derogatory way (changelings are different but related, like humans are different but related to chimpanzees and bonobos) are born faceless except for a gaping mouth lined with Way Too Many Teeth; they eat people to assimilate their desired physical characteristics but can also assimilate knowledge and memories, it’s usually inexperienced shifters that do this tho (see: Zel acquiring a PhD’s worth of knowledge of philosophy in their quest to get One Blue Eye); shifters are genetically compelled to perfect their physical form, but what this actually would look like nobody knows, the goal post moves all the time

dragons: are shapeshifters but are not shifters; they live in largely nomadic tribes and are native to a continent south of where the main cast of WtSS live; prideful of their scales and claws and therefore fucking terrible at passing as humans, which contributes to their isolation; some dragons really like humans and have kids with them and other dragons don’t like that one bit but will still take the half-human offspring into their tribe bc they’re still family; loyalty to one’s kin is considered the highest virtue in their society

more rambling later

[socialmediasocrates]

9, 23, 26, and 36 for

Balaste

Rhienn

Vyradra

Iraë

Mariss

and Ace

Please and thank you úwù

Gonna put this under a cut for length also cw Balaste

ty @vlasseblaster <3

OC QUESTIONS

BALASTE

9. Do you have a faceclaim / voiceclaim for your OC?

Not exactly? Balaste's appearance shifts in my head pretty often, but things that are generally true: short, even for a drow, built like a fencer, flamboyant in his personal style, with pink eyes and wavy white hair, brushing the collar of whatever ridiculous shirt he's wearing

23. What is a random fact about your OC?

He rarely eats out because he's so picky about how his food is prepared that it makes his siblings want to kill him in the middle of the restaurant.

26. Who is the most important person in their life? Why? Who is the least important to them (that still has an impact) and why?

His mother is the answer to both of these questions. He respects and despises Shrianatar in equal measure; he is also extremely afraid of her. I don't think she has a single child with whom her relationship isn't incredibly complicated, and Balaste is no exception to this rule. How he feels about her depends on the day and what she's asking him to do.

36. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?

I mean he needs therapy. What he wants is for his family to be cohesive and functional again, and there really aren't any ends he won't go to for that. Balaste loves his sisters, he really does, but he is his mother's son. He expresses love by being controlling and overbearing.

Rhienn

9. Do you have a faceclaim / voiceclaim for your OC?

Again, not exactly. Rhienn is a short woman with dark skin, densely curly hair to her waist and a lot of it, and deep brown eyes. From there a lot of things are left to the imagination; her appearance shifts a lot in my mind's eye.

23. What is a random fact about your OC?

She was originally a fantroll.

26. Who is the most important person in their life? Why? Who is the least important to them (that still has an impact) and why?

Rhienn's family are the most important people in her life (sans Mariss, more on her in a second). She would do anything for them, and she means everyone. Except for Mariss. Except for her younger sister. She knows she shouldn't feel so indifferent, but Mariss was a baby the last time Rhienn ever saw her. The impact of losing her echoes through Rhienn's life, just like it does for her parents, but Rhi doesn't get caught up in wondering who she might have grown into.

36. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?

She's pretty content with her life tbh.

Vyradra

9. Do you have a faceclaim / voiceclaim for your OC?

Not me not having any faceclaims whatsoever lmao. Vyradra is a young drow woman of average height with a face-framing haircut and golden eyes, and from there it's on ur imagination boo.

23. What is a random fact about your OC?

[redacted]

26. Who is the most important person in their life? Why? Who is the least important to them (that still has an impact) and why?

[redacted]

36. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?

[mega redacted]

Iraë

9. Do you have a faceclaim / voiceclaim for your OC?

Iraë is a smaller than average drow woman, a little on the chubby side with short super-curly hair, silver eyes, and golden freckles bc of sun elf heritage on her mom's side. But I don't necessarily have a set face claim for her.

23. What is a random fact about your OC?

She's a level 10 bard but I'm not telling you what school.

26. Who is the most important person in their life? Why? Who is the least important to them (that still has an impact) and why?

The most important person in her life is Uriel, for reasons you Ali are well aware of and your fellow players will find out one day. Mistress Baenep isn't super important to her anymore, but the impact she's had on Iraë's life is hard to measure or put into words.

36. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?

Iraë has pretty much gotten what she most wanted.

Mariss

9. Do you have a faceclaim / voiceclaim for your OC?

Mariss is a small, nervous woman with dark skin and a big cloud of curly black hair and big, dark brown eyes. She is constantly extremely skinny, and her left arm is a prosthetic of her own making, decorated with artwork depicting Summer Isler folklore.

23. What is a random fact about your OC?

She has a very nice singing voice!

26. Who is the most important person in their life? Why? Who is the least important to them (that still has an impact) and why?

The most important person to her is Beau, she just doesn't remember that at the moment; right now she'd probably say it's Booker. He's her fiancee, after all, and he did save her from the ice fields. :) The least important person with an impact on her is [redacted]

36. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?

Mariss really wants for very little? She's a simple woman; she wants to live a comfortable, quiet life where she can tinker with her inventions and read her books in peace.

Ace

9. Do you have a faceclaim / voiceclaim for your OC?

I made an artbreeder image of Ace, but at her base she's a young woman of mixed Asian and French descent with auburn hair and dark brown eyes and a lot of freckles. Average in height for a human woman.

23. What is a random fact about your OC?

Ace has a service dog named Monsieur, who is a Dalmatian.

26. Who is the most important person in their life? Why? Who is the least important to them (that still has an impact) and why?

Ace has short-term memory issues and the answer to this question changes a lot.

36. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?

[redacted]

[socialmediasocrates]

19 year old me really said “desert dystopia built on corporations monetizing wish-granting centered on a 10 year old undermining it with assistance from her talking pet cat”

...no i’m not bringing it back

yet

[socialmediasocrates]

what if i write wtss in present tense maybe that will solve my writer's block

[socialmediasocrates]

Not me not being able to name this fucking character and rambling about slipstream

-the villain that the Agency calls "Ice King" appears on the scene abruptly. He wasn't there, and then he was. There was no obscene, unmelting ice rose in the city center, and then there was. The third ranked hero was awake and well and unbloodied, and then he wasn't. The Ice King deals in jabs and jokes and brutal, efficient violence, and he makes no demands.

-The media loves him.

-The last villain of his caliber was Blueblood, whose reign of terror ended the day Speedster's ascent through the ranks began. People love to watch heroes fight villains, but they love it better when it's a bloodsport.

-It's not an official rule with the Agency that they need to make their battles with villains flashy and theatrical, but it's an understood pressure. It affects performance assessments, it drives some that are a little too high-minded into the shadowy world of vigilantes. And this unstated rule does not relax.

-The Agency wants the Ice King in custody, and they want a good showing made of it.

-And they look at Speedster to deliver more and more every day.

[socialmediasocrates]

GP’s on Mulberry: Introduction

The first part of a series of shorts about GP’s on Mulberry, a diner past its prime that has become host to some interesting regulars. Focusing primarily on Toni, the new overnight cook, and her mounting incredulity at the people she now deals with.

Link to "The Coffee Vampire" wherein Toni meets her first overnight regular.

                                                               ***

GP’s on Mulberry Street had been a city institution for the past fifty years.

When it first opened, teenagers had crammed themselves into its pale blue booths and shared plates of French fries while they waited for showtime at the drive-in theater across the street. That drive-in theater had been torn down around twenty years ago, and replaced by a quick succession of businesses. A department store, a car dealership, an erotic movie theater, and, finally, recently, a holistic medicine clinic. The staff at GP’s didn’t really know what holistic medicine was, and neither did the new crowds that had replaced all the teenagers, but every once in a while, they’d get a little gaggle of men and women in powder blue scrubs that would’ve matched the booths in their heyday. Margie, the head waitress, still shook her head when she remembered the day she was asked about vegan menu options.

“I didn’t know what a vegan was ‘til my son told me,” she admitted to Toni on her first day at the diner, “still don’t know how they live without eggs! Crazy world, crazy people. I told them the water was vegan, but my son says there’s little crabs or somethin’ in it. I’m tellin’ ya sweets. Crazy world, crazy people.”

Margie had been the head waitress at GP’s for thirty years, and her husband was the head cook. They were, at that point, as much an institution as the diner itself. She’d been there when Toni had stumbled through the front door blindingly drunk after concerts in high school, and she’d been there when Toni had come in looking for work in college, and she’d probably be there when death came knocking at the end of time. She never dropped anything, she never let the coffee go cold, and she never aged.

No, really.

Toni had been coming to GP’s all her life; everyone she knew had. And all her life, Margie had been about average in height until you accounted for her dark brown beehive of hair. She’d never gained or lost a single laugh line, and she’d always worn the same strawberry red lipstick. Toni had mentioned it to her once, and Margie had laughed about it.

“It’s the coffee, sweets!”

“You’re fucking with me, Margie.”

“Ah-ah! Put your dime in the jar!” Margie pointed at the swear jar tucked just out of sight under the order window, always half full of dimes and quarters. “We don’t use that kinda language ‘round here! The coffee fixes that, too, you oughta drink more of it.”

According to Margie, the coffee at GP’s fixed just about anything. The only thing Toni was aware of it fixing 100% of the time was a bad hangover. To listen to Margie, though? The coffee kept you young forever, improved your mood, and cured whatever ailed you. All for the low, low cost of fifty cents per cup.

(Toni never figured out how GP’s stayed open with its prices, and Margie never answered the question in detail.)

Now, Toni had been coming to GP’s all her life, but she’d always been there at decent, respectable hours. Midnight after a concert, or eleven in the morning when she went to work with her dad. She’d never been there at three in the morning, after Margie and her husband yielded control of the place over to the night crew, but that was what she was hired for. So, after a few weeks of training with Margie’s husband Walter, Toni got her new schedule. She’d be working from 10pm to 4am on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.  

The first few nights of this were fine. Her overnight coworker, a fellow college student named Devon who she was pretty sure sold weed on the side, was quiet but not rude, and the customers just kind of trickled and dribbled through. Other overnight workers, like them, a few truckers.

Then she met the regulars.