#lahq writes

[lost-at-hacketts-quarry]

"The Bark Is Worse Than The Bite" (Furblyg Angst)

[Nick's hanging with Abi at his house and all of a sudden she goes pale and shies away from him.] Nick: "Hey, your demeanor changed. What's wrong?" And that's when he feels it. Them. The all-too-familiar, ugly teeth of those awful creatures infiltrated his mouth yet again. Tearing into his leg wasn't enough for them the first time, and now they continuously invade and slowly make what's his theirs during these monthly "events". Nick: "Sorry...it was careless to try to see you today. You should go before it gets worse. It's not even sunset yet though, so I don't get why this is happening now...you shouldn't see me like-" Abi, quietly but assertive: "Like what, Nick? This is nothing new to me- to us. It's almost been a year. Plus..." Nick: "Plus what...?" Abi: "...plus your eyes have been yellow for awhile, the teeth are just what caught me off guard." Nick instinctively reached up to touch his face as if that would confirm his fears. Claws, that he didn't know were there, ever so slightly grazed his cheeks, causing him to recoil in disgust.

Nick, now frantic: "Abi...how have you managed to stay here this long with me? For Christ's sake, how are you even ok with being next to me right now? I did notice you gradually move away though, and I really can't blame you. But why didn't you tell me sooner...? You shouldn't be here, and it has to be getting worse- I literally didn't even realize I had already-" Abi, doing her best to pacify Nick's and her own distrust: "Well, your eyes still hold some of you. Yes, they're no longer the comforting and safe brown-almost-black I find myself staring at for far too long, but I can still somewhat see that kindness- your kindness- in them, even now. But..." Nick, skeptical: "But...?" Abi, gradually losing any confidence she had: "Your mouth- your words- aren't as kind as your eyes when you're...'here but not here', so any change there reminds me of that night. Your teeth are sharp and scary and that awful, searing pain arises every time I see them again. What you said at the pool house hurt worse than being thrown, to be brutally honest. And like...you're still you right now, but I...I don't want to be hurt again like that, Nick." Nick, somber: "...I think one of the most fucked up parts of this whole "condition" is that I don't even really remember that night. Or the month's that followed. Or the next one's. And I'm not going to remember whatever happens tonight, either. The cruelest part, though, is that you have to."

The two of them are quiet for a few minutes before Nick finally speaks up.

Nick: "Sometimes...I wonder which of us is really cursed. I'm sorry, Abi."

[sunset-a-story]

Character Voice Tag!

Rules: Rewrite the line of dialogue from the person who tagged you into the voice of your OC’s! (You can include a short beat of action to help establish character if you want.) Pass on the tag with a new line of dialogue.

Thanks to @ceph-the-ghost-writer for tagging me in their post and giving me the prompt of, "I like you."

Marek

Marek laid on his side in the dim light, smiling as he watched them dress, and marveled at their grace--which he objectively knew no one at all had when trying to find their other sock at 1:45 in the morning. "Stay."

Darwin

He looked down. "So you probably wouldn't want to go check out this new salad place I heard of, would you?"

Grace

She folded her arms in front of her chest. "You're just the cutest thing in the world, huh?"

Penn

There was a grumble of a protest as Penn got out of bed. Neither of them was scheduled to work that day (for whatever that was actually worth) and had planned to spend the day continuing the hookup until one (or both) were called in to handle some emergency. Penn's knees ached and the bed looked so warm and cozy but he knew he wouldn't be gone long. "Iced vanilla latte and plain bagel with jalapeno cream cheese, right?"

Fredericka

She sighed. "Goddamnit."

(My co-writer got tagged in the same post so I did the LAHQ cast and they nailed it with the Beatty cast here.)

I'm gonna no pressure tag some of the lovely folks who are eyeball deep in the Words into Potions writing event challenge with me ^^ @interroblog @kbwritesstuff @k-v-briarwood @akiwitch @maddstermind @sentfromwolves and open tag for whoever wants to jump in! Your phrase is, "I need help."

[nightsistcrs]

hi sunny! I hope your day is going well!! could we please have a shout out?? LAHQS is an original character appless city roleplay based in Los Angeles, California. We are focused on character development, building connections with muses and muns and creating a safe, inclusive laid back environment for roleplayers to write.

hi! honestly i miss rps like this that are just chilled and really focused on their character development, so it’s great to see! SHOUTOUT!

[lost-at-hacketts-quarry]

Just want you to know I devolved into baby cooing and crying sounds at your reblog, @noyoucantpinmedown /pos Also @littlest-xb your reblog made me very soft last night so ty kindly <3 I may actually go through with this- I'm unsure if I'll keep it here or make an AO3, but we shall see. The semester will be ending soon and I'll have an uncomfortable amount of free time, so maybe I will spend it working on this. Thank you for your encouragement :) Also Im going to add a writer's tag ig to keep things together

At least one (1) other person is interested in BATB Furblyg, so here's some ideas I'm spit-balling now or have had for awhile

Abi is absolutely Belle and Nick is The Beast/Prince Adam. Thinking about the Disney storyline specifically:

Prince Adam was cursed as a fucking 11 year old because he wouldn't let a stranger come into his house. He's not the shallow and pompous prick he's made out to be but that's a whole other soapbox for another day-

In terms of Nick, Silas is who bit him iirc, so I can already connect that to Eliza.

From here on is mostly being made up on the spot so apologies for the messiness: Nick is insecure and unsure of who he is, often falling in line with whoever he's around- and that's completely understandable- but maybe this is why Eliza curses him.

Going with the idea of Prince Adam/Nick being cursed as a child, perhaps Silas and him were campers at HQ and Silas was being picked on (maybe for his albinism) and Nick didn't step in to help. Nick was too scared to do anything to help his acquaintance and I could see her using this as a reason to curse him.

"So you were too scared of being targeted to stand up for him? Very well...I'll make sure you're always the target of taunting."

Keeps the fact that him being cursed was unfair, but still gives a plot reason on why he was cursed. There isn't a time limit persay, but Nick assumes that he's stuck like this forever.

Nick's curse ends up just making him look like the infected stage in TQ constantly, BUT he does wolf out like in TQ on full moons. He does not have a "normal" human form though. Nick also becomes more agitated and like his infected self in the game in the day or so leading up to the full moon, is completely out of control the night of the full moon, and is finally mentally himself again the following morning. Nick does retain memories from the hours BEFORE his transformation though, albeit a bit foggy.

Obviously distraught, Nick runs away and ends up living in an abandoned cabin in the Hackett woods. His parents file a missing person case but nothing really comes up from it. Nick didn't want to be found anyway, and eventually the international investigation was dropped and assumed a tragic accident. Idk how HQ stayed up and running but let's say it did.

Eventually while living alone, Nick ends up befriending a few campers over the years. Said campers sneak off during their summer trip to HQ and visit him almost every day with the exception of full moons. They bond and grow together over the years and eventually come back as counselors (get ready for my fun segue).

These are the main Hacketteers (minus Abi)! Cogsworth is Ryan and Lumiere is Dylan, but I'm unsure how I want to assign the others. Part of me thinks making Kaitlyn and Jacob Mrs. Potts and Chip would be funny (same with Laura and Max), but part of me is unsure. I also kiiiiiiiiiinda wanna make Jacob Gaston, but I'm undecided about that. Maybe there will be no rival love interest.

Anyway, Abi never went to HQ as a camper and her first time there is as a counselor! One day while trying to find one of her kids' favorite stuffed animals, she gets lost and ends up deep in the woods. Unfamiliar with the area and with night coming, she decides to approach and take refuge in the "abandoned" cabin in the distance.

Entering the cabin, she eventually stumbles upon a young man with yellow eyes...

N: "You need to leave. Now."

A: "Oh my God- I-I'm sorry I didn't think anyone was here. Wait, why are you slumped like that? Are you injured?"

N: "Go away."

A: "...if you're not injured, come into the light..."

N: [sighing, he steps into the ray of moonlight cast from the hole in the ceiling he fixed once upon a time, but eventually let fall into disrepair again]

A: "Oh...my God..."

N: "Now go."

Abi then runs off and manages to find her way back to camp, but neither her or Nick forget about that encounter and an unexpected friendship will emerge over the Summer months.

I lowkey wanted to make their first meeting a full moon BUT before a full transformation and then have Nick snap at her after trying to warn her to stay away. If I go with this idea, this will lead Abi to trying to find the cabin again after a few days to apologize to Nick for not listening, which works great for Nick because he was going to try to find the "red haired girl who smelled nice" again to apologize for what happened. Despite his appearance, he's still overall a really gentle person and didn't want to frighten her. If you made it to the end, thank you :)

[sunset-a-story]

Sunset Issue 13 is up for general audiences!

Links for where to read the latest issue can be found here.

In which they finish up the LAHQ Academy assessment, Alex gets a shooting lesson, and Reeve comes home to a surprise.

Sunset taglist. I try to keep it to release updates, long excerpts, and character profiles. Please comment/dm for +/-

@words-after-midnight @chayscribbles @elizaellwrites @theimperiumchronicles @thatndginger @clairelsonao3 @writeintrees @scribe-of-stories @kahvilahuhut @stuffaboutwriting @cee-grice @ravenkake @covenscribe @kingkendrick7 @void-botanist @worldsfromhoney @revenantlore @oc-writing-corner @rewritingrosie @jacqueswriteblrlibrary

[sunset-a-story]

Make Me Write Tag Game

Thanks to @writingmaidenwarrior for the tag!

Instructions: make a 24-hour poll with the names of your WIPs and then for whichever wins, write one sentence for every vote it gets. I'm no-pressure tagging @scribe-of-stories @words-after-midnight @writernopal @pandoras-comment-box @thatndginger

[sunset-a-story]

Happy Storyteller Saturday! When you get stuck on a project, do you find that it's usually the same thing giving you problems? What do you do get your progress jump started again?

Happy STS, friend! Thank you for the ask!

I'M THERE RIGHT NOW.

And, yes, it is usually the same thing giving me problems:

The middle section that bridges the start to the ending

LAHQ where the action isn't physical

So I'm grasping at the edges of my creativity to yank anything at all out and coming up empty. As far as jump starting it again? Ugh. I don't know. Typically I oscillate from walking away completely and not forcing it, FORCING IT and accepting that whatever I write might be trashed, reading the surrounding scenes, or working on something creative that isn't writing. Repeat. It hasn't worked yet but fingers crossed.

I'm not going to pretend that living in spoon debt for the last month with way more pain and fatigue than normal hasn't been a factor too.

[sunset-a-story]

Find the Word Tag Game

Thanks to @words-after-midnight for the tag! Responding a little late but here I am.

I'm no-pressure tagging @writerrelapse, @vsnotresponding, @verba-writing, and whoever else wants in.

My words: fire, midnight, moon, clock, wings

Your words: glow, home, horrible, impact, lips

Fire

Sage counted out one breath. Three beats in and five beats out. “You’re fired,” he said calmly. “Have someone on your staff write up your resignation. I don’t want you doing it because I need it by the end of the day.”

Midnight

The roads were still busy past midnight so they were stuck in the cab for a bit during which Hannah contemplated just how much Reeve was going to murder her.

Moon

There were just so many stars here. Where she grew up in the city the night sky was a flat black plane that held the moon and some pinpricks of light, like holes poked through a black piece of paper held up to a lamp. But out here where it was so much darker, the sky was full of stars in a way that made her feel dizzy and small. Like the sky was closing in on them. Even though it was darker it wasn’t black somehow. It had all these hazy edges of the Milky Way that made it look rumpled and textured.

Clock

“It becomes official when I sign it.” Marek cocked his head. “There’s an ‘effective at’ time on here of 9:00AM today.” Marek glanced at the clock on his wall: 8:55AM. “What happens if you don’t sign it by then?” “It becomes official. There’s no real mechanism for me to decline.” Marek chuckled softly. “So your consent is a formality?” “Welcome to being ranked officers in LAHQ.”

Wings

But Alex wasn’t done. “Where do these Icaruses--Icarusi? Icari?” Casey stopped his struggling. “The plural is just Icarus. Like fish.” “Whatever. Where do these--” She looked off to the side. “Actually fish is kind of a dark comparison because Icarus fell into the sea and drowned when his wings melted.” “Uh.” Alex jutted out his lower teeth, awkwardly, and locked eyes with Quaid while still talking to Casey. “Where do these Icarus come from anyway? If this place is supposed to be one big family.”

[sunset-a-story]

Hi there buddy, I'm Athena of @writeblrsupport . How are you, how's the writing going? What do your characters see in each other, how have they changed throughout the story?

Thanks so much for the ask, Athena! I'm okay and I hope you're well! Writing is going better than it has been for a few months. I've had a lot of writing paralysis as I'm working through Arc 3 of 3 so all the puzzle pieces that we've been setting out there/foreshadowing for the past 1,000 pages have to fit together now. There are a bunch of cause-and-effect chains that I don't know how to finish because they rely on others which also aren't finished because they rely on--you get it. I'm typically a chronological writer but for right now I'm just writing whatever scene is in my head with big brackets marking [here's where you put whatever the fuck is going on in LAHQ] etc.

Kicking that shit down the road to Later Me.

--What do your characters see in each other, how have they changed throughout the story?

Imma try to keep this short. Thinking about it, I think the people who are drawn to each other (in a variety of relationship types) are drawn to people who have a lot of characteristics that they lack. introverts & extroverts. serene & boisterous. And there are too many characters that change in different/better/worse ways so I'm not sure how to answer this one.

Thanks again for this ask! I might come back to the second part if my brain makes better sense of it.

[sunset-a-story]

Oh, no, no, I didn't say offices are not a place for violence--just that in the spot where I'm writing it's currently not an option.

LAHQ certainly has its more action-filled conflict moments because intrigue is a one way street to shit kicking the hell off eventually.

But this action-loving asshole has to write all the non-actiony stuff first. And it's hardddd.

The best way to get me to take another run at that action scene I've been stuck on is to write three scenes of people just talking.

[sunset-a-story]

Writeblr Intro

Hello, Writeblr. I joined to connect with other writers, especially folks who write/are into LGBTQIA+ sci-fi/fantasy stories. I’d love to connect with writers looking to hype each other up!

Sunset, a serial fiction in three arcs (Sunrise, High Noon, Sunset) is posted weekly. (Patreon members get issues one week earlier plus extras!)

Sunset Vol 1. Sunrise (Posted)

Patreon | AO3 | Wattpad | Royal Road Dramatis Personae page Playlist Audiobook version

Sunset Vol 2. High Noon (Releasing now)

Patreon | AO3 | Royal Road Dramatis Personae page Playlist

Content Warning List

@touloserlautrec is my amazing co-writer and artist behind the Sunset artwork.

When asked to sum up Sunset badly, I usually go with: Telepaths ruin everything.

An actual blurb:

SolCorp was founded to hide the existence of knacked people and their myriad of superhuman powers from the world, keeping humans safe from out-of-control knacks and keeping knacked people safe from human intolerance. So when they discover that one rogue Sol scientist had generated 25 babies with a defective Probability Manipulation knack and abandoned them out in the world fourteen years ago, it's up to SolCorp to find them and bring them back. But maybe their knacks weren't so defective after all because as three of the Venus 25 grow into adulthood, improbable things start happening that will change SolCorp and the world forever.

Sunset is a slow-burn of mounting tension and stakes that only get higher with expansive worldbuilding and a majority LGBTQIA+ ensemble cast that has something for everyone from espionage to adventure to romance and even a dash of monster hunting.

Extras on Patreon include things like exclusive deleted & bonus scenes, Baguette updates, early access to art and fiction, correspondence from LAHQ, and gift packages of merch.

Vol 1: Joey sees the history of everything and everyone he touches as translucent blue ghosts acting out the past all around him. And this includes his own past, which is how Joey knows he wasn't born, he was made. Made and thrown away. What he doesn't know is that the people who made him, SolCorp, are actively working to find him and bring him "home" to be with others that have supernatural knacks like Joey. Neither one has any idea how much that will change them both forever.

Vol 2: And then nothing was the same ever again.

Current Stage of Writing Process:

Sunrise (115k words/250 pages): Posted

High Noon (325k words/717 pages): Releasing now

Sunset: (580k words/1,348 pages so far): Drafting in progress

If you're interested in being on the taglist for Sunset, please let me know in a comment/dm!

Worldbuilding Posts

SolCorp Pharmaceuticals "A pristine pharmaceuticals office park where everything that happens is always in everyone's best interest."

Entropy Games Inc. (our Big Bad) "All games have winners, and all games have losers. Not all game pieces are made of plastic, and the warehouses have seen all of them."

The Church/The Children of God "Sanctuary will be given freely, no questions asked. There is just one edict--Fell the Dogs."

I also offer Alpha/Beta Reading Services!

Details below!

If you're looking for someone to put eyes on your original WIP and offer helpful but gentle feedback, message me!

Why me? I have a degree in Creative Writing. I was gainfully employed as a professional writer for 6 years. I have been published in literary journals and was a founding editor of a literary journal that I helped run for years. I have a 1,800+ page serial, and I just plain love stories. As far as pricing, I charge a $40 flat rate for pieces under 10K words and $0.004 USD per word for pieces over that.