#halfway home

[rawliverandcigarettes]

The Empire of Preys

***

It is 2166CE when Voice-Dalatrass Tschastarissi finally dies, rearing the Salarian Union awake from the passive slumber of her decades-old regime. But while the iron-willed dalatrass Linron plots her route to power with the aid of a reluctant turian diplomat assisting from the shadows, her daughter Jurlan loses herself to the past, uncovering dormant truths that may better stay untouched —and several stars away, two asari sisters pressured by money and haunted by false-starts must decide whether to let their ambition threaten far more than their lives alone.

This is a story about the empires that cling on.

Read now!

***

The Empire of Preys is part 2 of the Halfway Homes series based on the Mass Effect universe. It is both a prequel and sequel to Halfway Home, but can also be enjoyed as a standalone. Contrary to Halfway Home, it will be released hopefully at the rate of one chapter per month, but realistically: whenever a chapter is ready.

It's a gen fic with a side-serving of romance (lesbian and straight), a deep-dive into my weird headcanons for salarian, asari and turian culture, an exploration of neo imperialism and the casual devastation that comes with soft power --and what happens when soft power no longer suffices.

This is a multi PoV story with the following cast:

Rhanda T'selvi, ex asari commando and current security freelancer on Illium

Nagatha T'selvi, ex financial adviser and current unemployed babysitter for her sister's daughter

Nemore Linron, aka the dalatrass Linron, yes this one

Jurlan Linron, her miracle of a daughter, a case in genetics whose image shapes opinion across the entire galaxy

Auren Cæpta, a chronically ill turian diplomat sent on Sur'kesh for a critical secret mission

[ryehouses]

i’m reading your nanami baker fic rn and after chapter five THANK YOU FOR PUSHING THE TATTOOED NANAMI AGENDA. there is no way that anyone who survived being an emo teen when the black parade was released got to his late twenties without getting tattooed. so THANK YOU.

I am here for YOU anon!!! something abt a buttoned-up man with insane ink underneath is just! so good!

[womanexile]

This could mean one of the two

Or the Las Vegas Sphere

[beingharsh]

this book is getting so insanely good

[rawliverandgoronspice]

for the ask game: 5, 25, 26

Heyy thank you so much!!!

5. What's a tag you never want to use for your works even when it applies?

So I have never... not applied a tag, I think? I mean, if we're going to be completely transparent: I have once written a story that involves a lot of really icky themes and situations, but that are not in any way meant to be titilating. So I guess in these kind of contexts, I don't tag all of the sexual content the way other fics tend to do, because I don't want to attract the "wrong" kind of audience (aka people who expected a... certain type of experience and who would end up with a very depressing one instead). The tagging system in Ao3 can be really great and helpful in some cases, and kind of a headscratcher in others. RIght now I'm also facing the complicated case of: one of the biggest tags of one of my upcoming fic is a MASSIVE spoiler, but it would attract a lot more people if I did put it in from the get-go!! And I don't know what to do about it.

25. Is writing the whole thing beforehand better or worse than writing it as you go?

Hmmm. I have done both. I think both have advantages and inconveniences.

If you write as you go, you have the ongoing momentum. You can use the comments to fuel your motivation to continue, and you stay in the flow of things in a far more effective way. It's also better when you want to get stuff out without long-term commitment to the idea, which is a fine thing to do honestly. But, on the other hand, you lack full control over the experience, and you have to let go of the quality threshold you can reasonably aspire to reach. And if, like me, you just *do not* write linearly, you can end up with a very patchy draft where you have chapter 3 ready to go, but chapter 4 isn't. Chapter 5 to 7 is tho!! but then you have nothing, except for a couple of scenes and then the last one. And now you have to trudge through Chapter 4 to release the rest of it even though you'd much rather write something else, which could affect the quality of Chapter 4, which could have been much better if only I had waited for the "natural time" for me to come back to it. I think Descant suffered from this a couple of times, for example (but that's honestly an extremely Me problem)

On the other hand!! Writing everything at once allows you for a degree of control you just cannot have otherwise. I have done this several times, the most notable being the actual seven years I took writing Halfway Home, my Mass Effect fanfiction. When I reread it today (when I manage to push myself to do it, we'll come back to that), I just cannot deny how polished it is on a line level, and how I would have hurt the story if I had, as I originally planned to, released it one chapter at a time. Doing this allowed me to refine my craft and understand my story in a way I would have never ever accessed otherwise, and I have become a much better writer for it. But the cost of that was also quite great. I think there is such a thing as overworking your project, and I did cross over that limit while working on Halfway Home; some chapters have lost the flow and the easiness and spark of their first draft counterparts and became instead construction projects, where the goal was sturdiness rather than emotion, and I'm pretty sure you can feel that burnout in the finished product in places. Another thing is also: when you have worked on a project for that long and when that project ate such a huge part of your life, you can tell yourself that you don't care about reception, but there's a degree of that sentiment that has to become a lie. It's impossible not to feel a sense of grief once you see seven years of your life packaged and released and getting lost in the natural release flow of Ao3. Not to mention the risk (turned into a reality in my case) that the fandom will straight up die and interest will completely wane by the time you actually do put that project out.

Of course, this is a very extreme case, but I think my current stance on things is: trying to aim for a mixture of both? I feel confident enough in my writing toolbox that I know I can afford to lose some of that final quality and polish if it means not hurting myself creatively in the long run, only to gain an additional 5-10% of quality most people would not have noticed. So I'm kind of a 60% writing ahead of time / 40% writing as I go kind of person. My next project will not be fully completed when I begin to release it, but I will only do that when I'm confident its bones are sturdy enough to support its own weight to survive on its own out there, in the Big Wild Ao3.

26. What would you describe as OOC?

Oooo the big bad question. Hmm. I think my opinion is kind of weird a little less scientific than I would like, but I believe that every character has an internal emotion and/or yearning that makes them tick and gives them energy in whichever original canon context we find them in. I don't have to agree with every author about what that original energy/yearning is, but if the case made is compelling enough and this energy is carried over in other contexts, I am willing to accept most behaviors if the internal argumentation makes sense to this sort of original point from which every canon and fanon branch spread out. I think people lose me when their take become disconnected of that original appearance and begins to ride the wave of Popular Fanon, by which I mean: fanon archetypes that are not specific to the media we are talking about, but just general idea such as "brooding guy who secretely cares a lot", "very jealous love interest", "huge protective teddy bear"... I realize a lot of this has to do with allowing characters to have interiority, honestly. A lot of what I believe to be OoC trends have to do with a complete disinterest in some characters' internal lives to serve a fantasy crammed into a mold that doesn't necesserily fit, and without the work being done to make it fit or to make the necessary adjustments to make it specific to the characters involved. I think it's also why I'm not super big on general tropes or AUs in most fandoms --not because all of them are bad or even do this at all, some play with conventions and specificity very very well, or that the practice is worthless, who am I to decide that honestly (and it's not), but because the very appeal of them tends to be flattening characters in very indistinct shapes that can be easily swapped and replaced with each other, and this is not why I, personally, tend to be interested in fanfiction as a medium.

[nerdykitten]

i was just a game to you and you knew how to play me.

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

Sea, I think I missed it. But did Louis gave Half way home song? Did it got leaked? I forgot about all that, only now just remembered. He registered the song right? Then copy cat tweeted it for his album promo, now where is the song? Please link it, if you found the song.

Halfway Home was registered April 1.

The You Are Home Twitter account associated with Harry’s House tweeted this on April 13.

Louis did not include the song in Faith in the Future. It was never leaked. We did not get any snippets. After the tweet, the song was never mentioned again.

[mermaidinthecity]

— Halfway Home by Carly Pearce

[rastronomicals]

2:48 AM EST February 7, 2024:

TV on the Radio - "Halfway Home" From the album Dear Science (September 22, 2008)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

File under: Millennial New York Prog

[giggles-n-sorrows]

Working at a Halfway House Pt.1

I have tried to write something several times, but keep erasing it. I don't even know where to start. Outside of, this was the best, and worst, experience of my life. Working here was where I met my husband, was where my life was threatened, was where I saw someone getting stabbed on the street, where I made some of the most unique connections, memories, fell in love with those I served, but fell out of love with non-profits, created more firm boundaries for myself, and watch as others bulldozed right over them.

Watched staff have inappropriate relationships with each other/the youth, and watched some of the youth have the healthiest relationships with staff that they've experienced, and may possible ever experience.

Watched kids run away, some go to jail, some graduate from the program and do their best to figure out the rest of life, and some I've never heard from again.

It was a place where they did not set up adequate boundaries or training with the staff, so it was confusing, personal, my life, but still social services.

More to come.

[rawliverandcigarettes]

Nagatha T'selvi (vas Sorelliam), 248, ex-financial advisor. || Rhanda T'selvi (clan Orraken), 300, ex-commando.

"Do you remember?" Nagatha asked, eyes locked upward to the featureless ceiling of the apartment. Nos Astra colored it purple, as if it wasn't still white plaster underneath. Her manicured fingers crackled against her own. Blue. Almost see-through. Rhanda gripped the smaller hand inside her palm, and felt her own rough heat through overworked silky-smooth scales. Nerves were most of what they ever managed to share without judgement. "Remember what?" "I don't know." Mascara caked at the corner of Nagatha's water lines. She smiled. "Anything, I guess." (The Empire of Preys, chapter 15)

[ryehouses]

tattoo anon again! THANK YOU FOR THE FOOD. ITADAKIMASU EVEN.

of course he’s the kind of guy to be annoyed that his tattoo was slashed thru cuz it was expensive, not that he got his entire chest sliced open.

priorities.

YOU ARE WELCOME, ANON.

If you'd like a visual, pls imagine something like this, but like. on the titty.

[womanexile]

This is a poem by William Wordsworth.

It’s meaning

https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/william-wordsworth/i-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud#:~:text=%E2%80%9CI%20Wandered%20Lonely%20as%20a%20Cloud%E2%80%9D%20argues%20for%20a%20strong,concentrated%20power%20of%20the%20imagination.

[ohposhers]

troll who isnt allowed caffeine or she'll reenact the Hammy energy drink scene from over the hedge clay prefers tea anyway

[rawliverandgoronspice]

For the fic asks, 3, 17, 34 👀

Heyy thanks for the asks!!

3. What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?

So I replied to this here already, but I had a thought since and. I actually. Made a bingo. Once.

Here is is.

it is still extremely and shamefully relevant. u_u

(I would just replace/appendum "Imperialism" to the "probably Capitalism's fault", but HEY both are often interconnected so vOv)

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

Hmmmm.... I don't know what counts? I'm generally not sure what is an AU and what is "you twisted canon's neck to fit the Vision". I also don't think my tastes are so esoteric that nobody else would appreciate them? I guess the things I'd love to see is, TLOZ-wise, is an AU where Impa and Ganondorf team up, one where Ganondorf and Tetra team up... I am also very open to modern era AUs if they have a bite to them, and exemplify canon dynamics in a different way? I generally won't go looking for AUs on my own, so I'm not super knowledgeable in what actually exists haha

34. What aspects of your writing are inspired by/taken from your real life?

So... That's a good question, because how do you even compartimentalize what counts as real life inspiration and what doesn't? I'd say everything I write is inspired by reality, and there are some fics (*erm* halfway home) which are basically me splattering my insides on the sidewalk in a way that can get pretty personal, but I suppose everything is influenced by everything? There are uhhh motifs that can be found in my stories that might be a bit revelatory and/or obsessive, but while I'm not always great at branching out of the Strong Core of Usual Bullshit, I try to approach the characters with empathy, figuring stuff out about myself/my own understanding of the world the closer I reach for them.

Thanks again for the asks!! hope it was somewhat answered appropriately

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

I'm convinced Louis was aware of HSHQ co-opting Halfway Home on thier account associated to H's album and Louis abandoned it. One actively baits Larries and another has gently tried to steer them in the right direction but they're not paying attention, man can't even wear a shirt without them assigning some meaning, as opposed to just liking a green polo shirt, I like green too, I'm not a larrie. Too bad, I bet that song was a banger.

FITF has several references to “home,” so I am curious how the song would have fit into the general concept of the album.