#i needed to write up my first act upon garnering a rogue

[jacqcrisis]

After convincing Astarion to not do any stabbing and to join the party, Ronan seems very interested in his rogueish abilities. Upon hearing he's handy with a lockpick while they wander the shoreside and the wreckage of the mind flayer's ruin ship, the dragonborn stops, stating he needs the elf to do something. He turns around, starts marching with an intense determination back toward where he and Shadowheart initially fell.

Everyone follows. Where are they going? He must have some idea, must be something he noticed that no one else had...

Shadowheart groans audibly as they stop in front of the massive ancient door inlaid into the cliffside, many minutes having been wasted earlier with her new strange fellow pulling at it and fiddling with it fruitlessly. She mutters something about running out of time as Ronan towers over the rogue, gesturing vaguely at the barrier between him and gods' only know what. Ronan asks him if he can open it, relaxing when Astarion says he can take a crack at.

Ronan probably almost gets stabbed again when he casts guidance on Astarion by patting him heartily on the back, but thank Bahamut he gets to see what is behind that door. It was driving him absolutely nuts.

[shrewful]

WIP’s & Main Characters; A List

It’s time I actually started functioning like an actual writeblr, folks! With this guide, y’all can (must, I mean. this is a demand and not a request) ask me questions, request info or short stories on certain WIPs or characters, and generally force me to put what's in my head on paper — er, screen.

Apex Tempest (Previously Perish & Prosper) 

My beloved main WIP, constructed from the corpses of about three or four other failed WIPs. This WIP is fantasy, but world-building heavy, partially founded on the idea that everything — and I mean everything — would be completely original. No borrowed gods, no monsters from real-world myths, and no Tolkien species; Apex's gods (entities) are vague and strange, it's monsters are grotesque, but elegant, and in later books that will take place in the same world, will feature a cast of original fantasy species. Apex Tempest's plot follows the story of the climax of two entities' eternal battle through their disciples — pseudo-demigods, for the folks at home — and how their plans are foiled by a deal, a rogue destiny, and gay rights.

Spirit In The Woods, or, El’ai is our intrepid main character. They are a special flavor of crouching moron, hidden badass. From being raised by skeleton smoke ghosts in the half-dead forest island of Akther, they have little to no social skills they can use when they head to the mainland (they’re also just naturally a bit oblivious). At the same time, El’ai is not only an incredibly good fighter but has a bold heart of gold; they do good for the sake of doing good, and while it may not seem too important, this sets them apart throughout the book as the one to move the plot along. 

Velvera is both our villain and love interest; surpassing enemies-to-lovers to the coveted, strange, and confusing grey area of enemies-AND-lovers. I could write a three-page essay on her character; she’s a bit complicated, so I'll be fleshing out her personality and relationship with El’ai through chapter tidbits and short stories. In short, she’s a dissociated biologist who is so dissociated that she literally agreed to end the world in exchange for the ability to manipulate cells — an ability which she almost only uses to study biology, like the big disaster nerd she is. 

Mauve City

2nd to main WIP right here, probably. Follows the story of Sodapop Bonegreive, affectionately nicknamed ‘Bone’; an 18-year-old boy looking to become an animator. However, his plans are thrown off the rails when his uncle‘s business goes completely downhill, leaving their little family with not very much to live off. Bone turns to the internet for job opportunities and acquaints Morgan, who guarantees him that he can earn enough money to fund both his family and college funds in just a single year. Bone accepts, and before he can pack his bags, finds none other than Morgan lounging on his windowsill the next day. What follows is a trip to Mauve City; a rust-belt city that both became prosperous and disappeared from the worlds’ memory in a matter of years, and Bone’s transformation from art student to mobster on the streets of the city with no rules. 

Bone is the main character, and of all my characters of any WIP, the most beloved thus far. I legitimately have no clue why, of all my characters, Bone has garnered the most affection over the past few years amongst my friends. At his core, he is awkward, unsure of himself, but generally well-meaning, but the circumstances he is put under force him to develop a new persona; sly, debonair, cold, and professional, but with wit and mischief to go around. 

Morgan is morgan. oh boy

Lucile is always at Morgan’s right hand; they were once in a relationship, but not anymore, though Lucile still sticks by him. She is grim, quiet, beautiful, but in a melancholy way, like a stone angel. She has a bigger part to play in the second book that is only hinted at, but here, she is a friend to Bone and something of a behind the scenes player. 

Below are my 2nd-Tier WIPs; they are far less active or developed than the ones above. 

Wind Up, Dollface, and Ickster

These are my oldest standing WIPs with, surprisingly, the least amount of details character-wise; Wind up and Dollface are two sister books that have events that occur at the same time, while Ickster is the two’s prequel. They can be read in any order. In Ickster, magic is discovered and thus known as ‘Ick’; the sentient plasma with strange qualities that is theorized to make up souls. This force can be used in many different ways, and thus, as It Do(TM), the government creates a branch of the military known as the Icksters, dedicated to using the new force as a weapon to fight in an upcoming war. Ick becomes the worlds’ most coveted technology, and the Icksters, whose masks and cowls were originally designed to hide their identities, become celebrities, and their masks and cowls individualized and made unique to give them special identities. One thing leads to another, bing bang boom, Ick-based armageddon and fallout time! Many years in the future, we find ourselves in our two sister books; in Wind Up, our main character is made of metal and glass and goes on a quest to discover her creators, and in Dollface, our main character is made of cloth and stuffing and goes on a quest to overthrow their creators. Why? How? I guess you’ll have to read it, bucko!

Ickster never got any solid main characters; I wasn’t even going to write ut as a book. It was originally just going to be the backstory discovered in the sister books until I realized that it was rad.

Dollface’s main character is Tink, who I am renaming sometime; a human-sized wind-up doll with amnesia and a missing dad. They go on a search to find said dad and end up uncovering ancient mysteries and wracking up a band of companions along the way. 

Dollface’s main character is unnamed as of yet, but basically, they’re a life-sized ragdoll who goes about freeing his people.

The Adventures of Deadhead, & How Charlotte Saw Red (ADHCSR)

We’re now getting into the Megaspace (will explain... sometime.) Earth books; this, The New Inferno, and Fairy Floss all take place in the same world. The setting is urban fantasy, and while there are quite a few sci-fi esc crazy metropolises in this world, our story takes place in mediocre not-big-enough-to-be-a-proper-city, but-too-urban-to-really-be-called-a-town Slatesburgh, and surrounding suburbs. We follow the story of Charlotte, daughter of a disaster of a witch, and her best friend; Deadhead, the living corpse her mother put together, because why not? They start a band with rotating other members and slowly make a name for themselves, playing against bands of satyrs, vampires, and more, all whilst trying to keep a considerable distance from Charlotte’s unwelcome admirer, Sweetheart. Meanwhile, local mistreated lad makes a deal with an evil warlock trapped in the body of a raven for power so that he can fix the mess that the adults of this godforsaken town created, and it’s up to Charlotte and the band to make sure he doesn’t create a regime in the process (because again, the adults of this place are useless). 

Charlotte fucking rocks. She’s quiet and straight-faced to create a no-nonsense image but is a purveyor of nonsense herself -- being one of the most responsible people in the book, whilst also having a solid philosophy of doing the first thing that comes to her head, which tends to be either a blessing due to having great ideas, or a curse due to magically-backed anger issues. She’s another character you gotta read to know, but what is for certain, is that her design is rad. 

Deadhead is a lovable wreck that moves the plot along by virtue of being kidnapped every 2 chapters -- no one knows how or why Charlotte’s mom made them, and since no one wants to deal with Charlotte’s mom, they tend to just snatch them up. They’re the type of person to take the cigarette out of your mouth and eat it when they pass by you.  

Ochre is the villain/main character of the semi-political subplot. After being kicked out of his house by his guardians and almost dying of hypothermia -- something the magic counsel was supposed to prevent -- Asmodeus, a warlock, comes to offer him a deal. Asmodeus is a warlock; once incredibly powerful and considerably evil, but after the crusade against warlocks, was turned into a bird like all the other warlocks. Asmodeus can’t use his power himself, but had figured out how to seep his magic into another being; and, stumbling upon this emotionally manipulatable teen, decides to take him under his literal wing. 

Welcome to Summersbook; the Quadrilogy

Though these four books are Megaspace books, they do not take place on the same earth as the others. But it’s still earth. I’ll explain later. These are all semi-realistic fiction; while they definitely could happen in the real world, there will be more than a few times where you will need to suspend your disbelief. They follow the stories of the Senior, Junior, Sophomore, and Freshmen classes of Summersbrook Highschool and their various hijinks, each with its own tone; the Senior book follows Gamboge, a wise and intelligent kid that speaks, dresses, and acts like a stereotypical ‘hick’ and is treated as such until other kids of his grade stumble upon him for wisdom, comfort, and good dialogue -- all until the end, where the people Gamboge helped band together to help him back. It’s focused on provoking thought and is centered around dialogue and character relationships rather than action. The Junior class follows Lucky Bird of the Bird family and her plucky, painstakingly nicknamed compatriots as they try to improve the quality of their town and the lives of their friends. This book is filled with hijinks and mischief, and while there are a good few emotional moments, it’s mostly a feel-good adventure between best friends. The Sophomore class is my favorite; Summerbrooks’ in-famed Cannibal Class is filled with a colorful array of inexplicable geniuses with too much time on their hands. This would be far from an issue, if not for one moment; when Wulver Bathgate asks his compatriots how they’d go about making a quick buck. What follows is a capitalist drama, taking up the mantle of ‘comedy’ only because of the whiplash that follows going between “there’s a communist coup d'é tat” and “in room 101 with the drama kids” in the same sentence. The freshmen class’s story isn’t quite decided yet.

Gamboge is, as previously stated, the stereotype of a hick at first glance. He’s almost as pale as he is pink with sunburn at any given moment in time, wears torn jorts, rarely a shirt, and some variety of a loppy-brimmed hat. Every day after school, he sits in the same patch of grass and moss under the same tree, and every day, more and more new faces show up for his rumored good advice. Though he does dispense some good words of wisdom throughout the book, he struggles to get through to himself

Fletcher Blue is someone who you get to know through bits and pieces of dialogue throughout the Senior book. 

Lucky Bird suffers big-family-with-cool-siblings syndrome; each of her siblings had a claim to fame, whilst Lucky, well, didn’t -- all except Lucky’s famed luck. Lucky begins her quest to improve her dingy town out of a need to validate herself but quickly finds herself with different reasons along the way.

The Sophomore Class’s characters are yet to be solid.

Fairy Floss

Dr. Bealiamonte, local space mutant scientist, created 6 super-artificial intelligences designed to watch over the world known as the Noble Intelligences; Helium, Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon, and Radon. What followed was an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity -- but, that period came to a screeching halt. The intelligences had been given bits of human emotion and empathy, but not too much. They were also given the ability to criticize themselves, leading to their eventual discomfort with the fact that they didn’t entirely understand their subjects, the humans, even if they ruled well anyways. Thus, the Nobles created the second generation of super-intelligences, effectively built with the emotional capabilities of a human and the computing capabilities of a supercomputer. These were known as the Halogens; they almost immediately became unstable and began wreaking havoc. In response, The Odd Fellows, a secret society bent on the protection of the world, sends out operatives to stop the raging robot-gods, with Fairy Floss amongst their ranks. Both sci-fi and fantasy, because hell yeah. 

Fairy Floss has the most beloved design of all my characters, in my humble opinion, though I accidentally made her look like a Black Panther; beret, small circular sunglasses, a pastel pink shawl, tall black boots, and braid-bun. Still working on the personality, but her first language is Esperanto. 

The New Inferno 

The New Inferno follows Dante, our local debt-swamped fresh college graduate, with nowhere to live except the particularly stereotypical haunted-house esc victorian home passed down to him by his eccentric rich grandfather. Dante is almost-but-not-really surprised that this house isn’t actually as abandoned as it seems; it houses a variety of ghosts that Dante’s grandfather had collected over the years. These ghosts reveal that Dante’s bloodline, which is able to be traced back all the way to the Dante, Dante mother-trucking-Alighieri, Durante-di-gott-damn-Alighiero-degli-trucking-Alighieri, has the unique ability to interact with those from the afterlife and its associated creatures. From this fact, his ghost compatriots suggest a way out of Dante’s financial issues; ghosts are actually quite plentiful, all stuck in the mortal world after leaving some sort of business unfinished. This is not-so-pleasing to demons and angels, as they are the ones who manage the afterlife, and having a soul out of place is like having an itch un-scratched or a box-unchecked; after all, mortals aren’t the only ones who can’t rest until things are finished. Thus, when Dante assists a ghost in completing their business and thus sending them wherever they need to be, he often gets a reward from the angels or demons that receive them -- usually via finding 50 bucks in the street or winning a lottery he never entered. But, things start getting hectic when those angels and demons begin requesting more and more -- and, before he knows it, there’s a demon on his futon and what looks to be a flaming mass of golden rings, eyes, and wings in his kitchen. Will our coffee-fueled protagonist make his way out of the forest dark? Who knows! Dante sure doesn’t. 

As my newest WIP, Dante is also very fresh and not too developed. Upon ask, I will actually start writing a solid personality. I’m not entirely sure on what hour of writing this I’m on, so I’m gonna leave this at that.