#i named her merridan

[persephinae]

so i was playing around with DD2 cc, and this face looked closest to me

so i tweaked it, trying to get it as close as i could i guess (also fyi the cc has body sliders) and while the archer looks cool as shit, i might choose the mage profession whenever i get the game

cc is free to play around in so you can download the demo and create your ocs for free fyi

[connieturnpenny]

Hi Connie! I'm kind of in love with that Constellations Ask Game you reblogged a while ago so I'm asking you questions based off that! I'd love for you to talk more about MMiL but I know you're gonna do whatever you want. Aries, Cassiopeia, Ursa Major, Indus, Virgo 💕 (yes it's a lot & I'm not sorry)

Hi! Sorry it took me so long to get to this, I was reading but I am now frustrated with the book so I need a break.

Aries: Share a line that you’re proud of!

I would love to answer this question with something from Monster Made in Light like you asked but unfortunately the book is 96% unwritten so that’s a bit hard. Instead I will share something from The System of Sebastian Cole. I can’t pick just one part of this story I am most proud of so I came up with two. For context, I will include a bit before/after the line and then put the actual line in bold.

If any of the three of us -- of anyone else in the war -- should have left alive, it should have been him.

I knew he was going to die right there.  Nothing I could do would help him -- only a miracle could.

The world ran out of miracles a long time ago.

(this is also where the title of this blog comes from)

The next one is more fun.

“Come on, Sebastian.  Can you at least pretend to care?  Who shoved what up your ass?”

“Nobody.  Nothing.  Not in far too long.   Isn’t that right, Elliot?”

My face reddened when your sister looked at me.

Cassiopeia: What’s your favorite scene so far?

Also hard to answer for Monster Made in Light for the same reason, sorry! I do have an answer for Remedy Orbit, though! My favorite scene in that is when three boys attack Aine and cut off all her hair while Tiede watches (wow that sounds more evil than I thought it would but it shouldn’t surprise anyone that it’s my favorite because I’m me) and after Tiede gets her out of there she kisses him for the first time (see, that makes it less evil, right?)

Ursa Major: What scene are you looking forward to writing?

I actually do have an answer for Monster Made in Light for this one! But it’s much more evil than my previous answer. I’m really looking forward to writing the scene when Makalo dies (not a huge spoiler because one point in the story is that everyone dies except Merridan) because his death is what makes Merridan decide to isolate himself and never even tell another person his name, which I like because it means that much more when Merridan tells Emit his name when he meets him many years later.

Indus: Are there any characters or stories you miss writing? Tell us about them!

I really miss writing Sebastian Cole 😭 It’s the first story I’ve ever completed and it is my extremely depressing baby. As for characters, I miss everyone from The Glass Spider except Braxlin which is why I killed him, but I’m not going to talk about that story because I hate it now. I’d like to someday use the characters from it except Braxlin in another story with a whole new plot someday.

Virgo: Describe your favorite tropes.

Oh boy here we go.

The gentle and peaceful character who will go completely feral when someone hurts the ones they care about - see Emit and Tanda.

The badass “unfeeling” character who is soft for one person and one person only - Searadell from The Glass Spider who falls in love with Tess. Not on my character page but I still love them.

This is getting long. Should I stop? I’m gonna put more.

Dumbasses who don’t realize they are in love when it was quite obvious to everyone else around them and especially obvious to the reader. Haven’t written it yet but definitely will in the future

FOUND FAMILY - see all my stories

I’m gonna stop myself now but this could go on for a very long time and I’m sure no one wants to scroll that much.

Thank you for the question!

[dismalzelenka]

Fictober Event, 10/4

I’ve decided to freewrite some scenes from my original fiction in preparation for tackling it for real during NaNoWriMo, so here’s prompt 4 for @fictober-event: “I know you didn’t ask for this.”

Tasha watched from across the fire as Ingrid hugged her knees to her chest and poked listlessly at a plate of beans. The chill of a cold desert night was seeping into her bones, and she felt herself shivering despite the crackling campfire and the thick wool cloak wrapped around her shoulders. "You should get some sleep, Ingrid."

"I can't." Her response was flat. She didn't take her eyes away from the ground.

"Is this about what Merridan said before he left?" The question was pointed, spoken more sharply than she'd intended. Some hurts took longer to heal than others. Some betrayals would never cease to sting.

"About why you left Pelleas before?" Ingrid looked up and met her eyes. The fire cast eerie shadows across her face. "About what you are?"

Tasha looked away. "I suppose that's a yes, then." A moment of uncomfortable silence hung suspended in the air between them. "Why did you stay?"

"It's not." Ingrid dragged her fingers idly through the sand. "Why were you so certain I would leave?"

"It doesn't scare you?"

"Why should it?" Ingrid plucked a tiny plume of flame from the fire and twirled it around her fingers. "This magic runs in my veins. It's the lifeblood of my homeland. A piece of that flows in you, too."

Tasha scoffed. "Magic, and madness. Telmar's gift, and Dantius' curse. Down here, they're one and the same. The old magic died out here long before either of us were born."

"You don't feel the way the rest of them do." Ingrid extinguished the flame and blew the smoke into fractal patterns that slowly lost their shape and disappeared into the night sky. "The Chaostouched back home, they're—something about them is twisted. Speaking to them, being around them, it's…like walking into a room you've been in and out of your entire life after someone's moved everything inside six inches to the left. You look into their eyes and see a shell of a person clinging to a fragment of who they used to be, buried under layers and layers of anger and hatred."

"They're pretty much like that down here, too."

"You aren't like that."

"You say that like you've been around a lot of them."

Her gaze hardened. "Only one. A childhood friend. I watched him slowly lose himself to it, and then one day he wasn't him anymore, and then I watched the Nullifiers put him down like a rabid animal." She grimaced and shook her head slowly. "I've looked madness in the face, Tasha. Begged it to recognize me, then wept when it hurt me all the same."

"And yet here you are, eager to repeat the experience."

Ingrid shook her head. "If everything Merridan said is true, you left Pelleas well over fifteen years ago. By all rights, you should be dead by now, or so ensnared in the throes of chaos madness you no longer know your own name. And yet you are neither. Why, I wonder?"

Tasha snorted. "You stayed behind in the Blightlands with a woman you barely knew—a Chaostouched—because you were compelled by idle curiosity? You're even more of a fool than I thought."

Ingrid stood up suddenly, hands balled into tight fists at her side. "I stayed because finding the ruins of old Emiraithe might give me answers, Tasha, answers Rory was exiled here for seeking. I need to find her. I need to find what was so important she risked everything to find it. I stayed because you and I have the same destination, and I am not so easily frightened by things I do not understand. Merridan was content to run back to Roblena with his tail tucked between his legs because he has something there to return to, but you have nothing and I have nothing, and all we have are these blighted ruins that could tell us everything or nothing at all, and you think I'm the fool?" She sat back down and wiped her eyes with shaking hands. "Rory risked everything while I stood idly doing nothing at all, and then she lost everything. I have to find her. I owe her that much."

"And if you cannot find her?"

"I will," Ingrid hissed through gritted teeth. "Or I will tear this world apart trying."