#worst case scenario i could ask my coworkers if any of them are equipped to take an aggressive female betta

[pisciformshenanigans]

Hm... while Ramen and Udon seem to usually get along fine, I am seeing some chasing and nipping going on :/ And I don't think I actually CAN put Ramen back in the 5 gallon, not without severely stressing the shrimp. I might have to set up the 3 gallon again and put her in there if she keeps being like this. Disappointed, but I knew this was a possibility. 3 gallons is smaller than I'd really like for a betta but it's what I have on hand.

I COULD see if I can snag the 5 gallon my work is using to display the christmas decorations, although that's where I got a different 3 gallon for my fiancée (which hasn't been set up kdsjf) so idk if they'll let me take two tanks in a row. They probably will, because otherwise they just have to throw it out since we can't sell tanks that've had water in them.

[withbloodiedfingertips]

an introduction to my characters: the protagonists

i decided that, for much needed context going forward, i’d introduce all of the protagonists (and their love interests, who are usually the dual protagonist of the novel) and the basic plots of all of my books so that you have a bit of an idea what to expect from this blog! i love all of these characters with my entire heart so if you ever have any questions about them, please feel free to ask! or if you want to know more about any of these books, just let me know! i’m gonna put all of the info under the cut just because i have a feeling this is going to be a bit of a long post, because i cannot shut up when it comes to my original characters, so i’m sorry in advance!

the resurrectionist:

summary:

moving away from home was supposed to make maisie’s life better.

she was supposed to fall in love, not get her heart broken by the only person who’d ever made her truly feel safe. she was supposed to make more friends, not actively hide from her coworkers unwanted attention in the backroom. she was supposed to be more than she was in high school, not wind up trapped in a shitty apartment with no hope of affording anything larger. she believes that she’s going to be stuck like this until she dies, wondering exactly what it is she’s sticking around for. 

that is, until she meets akira, who inexplicably takes her in as a friend. 

but is friendship really all he wants, or is it something more?

the characters:

maisie lovage:

i’d be lying if i said that i didn’t base maisie off of myself, in more ways than one. i always refer to her as essentially what i wish my future life could be like, if i had the courage to actually pursue it, though hers is a lot sadder than i always imagined mine to be. she’s a twenty two year old who is a huge fan of this japanese author - ayako uchida - and that’s pretty much the catalyst for her meeting with akira! maisie used to be much more of a dreamer when she was younger - she used to always imagine herself as a famous artist, showing her work in art galleries - but nowadays art’s more of a hobby she can barely bring herself to pursue anymore. she does sketch whenever things are slow at her job though, she’s a receptionist at a tattoo parlor. i think maisie’s different than me in a whole lot of ways, but at our cores we’re really similar. i don’t know. she’s just such a sweetheart there isn’t much i can say about her other than she’s grown far more cynical as she’s gotten older but still tries to be as nice as she can to others, though she snaps a lot easier at them if they manage to get on her nerves. 

akira uchida:

i’m going to try not to spoil much about his character, because i don’t know if you all want to know what the major plot twist of this book is yet or not, but i love akira with all of my heart. he’s such a broken character - his father abused both him and his mother, and viewed the latter as nothing more than his property. his mother actually is maisie’s favorite author, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he’s her son and that she’s never going to be writing any more novels since she’s no longer alive. he’s twenty six years old and has some of the scariest icy blue eyes that maisie’s ever seen - his father’s eyes, which he hates more than anything. he’s tried to adjust his appearance from when he was younger as a means of escaping from his old life - akira uchida isn’t even his real name, it’s what his mother wanted to name him but never got the chance to. he’s tall and calculating, distant yet warms up almost immediately around maisie - though more because he loves teasing her for her naivety and how she still acts quite young at heart. i’m gonna leave it there because i think i’m going to spoil more about his character if i don’t but yeah! 

worst case scenario:

summary:

to be honest i don’t really have a great summary for this one so basically: lawrence is the son of one of the most powerful hero in the city that he and cullom live in, the latter who is the extremely poor son of a single mother who he barely sees, thanks to how often she works. they’ve been best friends for their entire lives, aspiring to fight as heroes and protect the citizens of their beloved city side by side, until one fateful day when they decide to break into lawrence’s father’s old hero equipment. because heroes in this world aren’t born or made, they’re bought with money. a fact that lawrence’s father makes abundantly clear to cullom, who still believed there was some way for someone like him to save others without having to spend ridiculous amount of money. when cullom runs out of lawrence’s place and asks him for comfort, the hero’s son merely replies that his father’s right and that he’s sorry. this causes cullom to basically go on such a downward spiral that, one day at the tender age of ten, he decides to run away from home. as he’s wandering around the rougher part of town, he sees a scuffle between a hero and a villain in an alleyway, and decides to pick up the villain’s gun and shoot the hero straight in the back of the head to save him. the villain thanks him and basically adopts him into the little family of villains they have living at this one bar, and the rest is basically history! cullom’s being trained up to be a sniper while lawrence is being trained up to inherit his father’s legacy. a lot of angsty conflict ensues for obvious reasons. 

the characters:

cullom cade:

this boy is my son. he’s one of my absolute favorite characters to write about because he’s, as most of my characters tend to be, so insanely broken in so many ways and just breaks further as the story progresses. and it’s that shattering that makes him sharper, darkens his heart to be only a distant shadow of what it once was. what i really focus on with him is this insanely pure, precious child’s descent into being far more morally grey than he originally was, but realizing with that, that the heroes aren’t actually the good guys. they’re insanely corrupt, which is what the villains are fighting back against. it’s painful to write about a character who still wants to be good but doesn’t really have the option to and grows pretty much complacent and, eventually, understanding of why he can’t be morally good but i think it’s an important story to tell. another important thing to mention is that cullom has pretty much an obsession with making lawrence pay - though there’s more feelings beneath that, as he realizes that he might’ve been more than a bit in love with him back when they were younger. i should add that cullom does grow up over the course of this novel. he’s not a ten year old forever. they don’t actually let a ten year old go out on missions. a fair bit of this book focuses on his actual training and him screwing up his first mission and all that. he also adopts a child at some point for very sad reasons i won’t reveal but it’s very cute. i love this bastard so much. 

lawrence who i have yet to give a last name:

i feel so bad for him too. he genuinely doesn’t understand that the heroes are corrupt - and if he does, he chooses to turn the other cheek because he doesn’t want to believe it - until a few encounters with cullom make him realize that maybe he doesn’t have a real understanding of how the world is. he’s does, however, believe that he’s completely in the morally right - that he’s always been in the morally right, but his story is really coming to terms with how much of a villain he truly is. and also coming to terms with his feelings for cullom, because he too doesn’t really understand why he still hesitates to kill him. these boys are both idiots, basically, but i love them. lawrence is a super fun character to write about just because he’s kind of awkward and distant from being raised to be professional his entire life. he’s basically always been a young businessman, and the only time he could really be a kid when he was younger was around cullom. it’s a part of the reason why his father never wanted them to be friends and they had to hang out in secret often times because lawrence still do desperately wanted to be his friend. they’re both good boys, even if they’ve done bad things. i don’t know. i love them. 

my unnamed plague romance novel:

summary:

the day the last of roisin’s family died of the bubonic plague, she made a vow to herself - that she’d do everything in her power to learn how to save anyone else fallen ill to this disease she somehow miraculously survived.

and maybe she could. if she weren’t an irish girl living in england, without even a scrap of hope for scraping up an apprenticeship. so she does what she can to ease the suffering of those on the verge of death. giving them water to wet their chapped lips. holding their frail bodies in her arms until their very last breath. singing the children lullabies so they can rest as easy as possible without their parents there to comfort them. until one day, she notices a band of thieves robbing valuables off of corpses. outraged, she goes to confront them, and falls prey to the teasing charms of none other than elliott leighton - son of the best doctor in all of london. but, for all of his medical training, he makes one fatal mistake that he can’t come back from.

revealing to roisin that his father doesn’t know about this side job of his. 

and thus a deal is made - roisin will keep quiet about it in exchange for training beneath elliott, who’s only a few years away from inheriting his father’s business.

but will she prove too weak under the pressure of being unable to save everyone?

the characters:

roisin quinn:

i! love! roisin! so! much! she is such a delight to write and has possibly the best banter ever with elliott because of how unafraid she is to call him out for his bullshit, yet she’s still so inanely motherly and caring. it’s really the best combination ever and i just love how strong she is. i haven’t really gotten to write much of her but she’s adorable on so many levels. plus she has freckles! which are precious! i don’t know man, roisin’s just great. there’s really not much more i can say about her but if you wanna know more, just ask!

elliott leighton:

this bastard. he’s such a bastard. that’s really all i can describe him as, a bastard. an insanely suave, flirty bastard who isn’t afraid to flaunt his talents. he’s really the perfect character to be with roisin just because he can be super selfish and he does genuinely think she’s troublesome at first, but grows to care for her overtime because he sees how much she cares and how she truly does deserve to be in the medical field and vows to help her succeed, however he can. i mean what did you really expect from a character who steals valuables off of corpses? he’s not very openly affectionate - rarely admits at all that he is being affectionate, and gets all flustered when he’s called out for it, which roisin does whenever she gets the chance - but when he is... it’s the softest thing ever. he does think very highly of himself though. probably a bit too highly - he’s a hard teacher on roisin, and always praises his abilities whenever she slips up - but like i said, he’s really not a bad guy. just takes some getting used to i guess. 

[loviswriting]

Between the space and the stars - WIP scene

Today while showering I got some inspiration, and this night I finally wrote down some stuff instead of just having it in my head! This is a rough sketch, but is a scene where some of the most important side characters for my scifi-novel “Between the space and the stars” are introduced. The scene itself shows earth facing a crisis, being handled from the moon base of operations. The beginning of the scene is down here, the rest under the cut. Hope you enjoy it!

______________________

Commander Adesina had just begun her morning shift at the bridge of Lunar centre, stationed at transmission and subspace monitoring. It was only 06:15 UTC and she yawned accordingly. The bridge was quite calm at this time but as always fully staffed, but not much chatter nor conversation, the only sounds being low humming from the computers and occasional beeps. Lunar centre had for many years been the main base of operations for earths space strategy coordination, placed on the moon. This was also earths oldest and first off-world planetary base, but was continuously upgraded and refitted along with new technological advances and conducting research. It was also the home for many moon colonists who worked there, or who had been stationed there. That was the case for Elisabeth Adesina. She had worked at Lunar centre for about seven years, with occasional months operating on earth instead, to be able to be closer to her children living there. Those months were very much appreciated, not only from the family point of view but also to get an environmental exchange and not being stuck in space too much. Although being one of Earth Space Forces finest science officers, she was not a huge fan of working in space. She felt it was so wast and deep, hiding things one could never imagine. On the other hand, she knew this also meant wonderous scientific things waiting to be discovered, and this made her very fascinated with space in ways that made it worth being out in the vast darkness. However, from her station on the bridge, she often had an excellent view of the earth through the huge window in the front of the room. That made her feel a little bit closer to home, compared to when she had been on deep space science missions on starships, where home might never be seen again.

She was doing her usual routines - monitoring transmissions on different frequencies and potential changes in subspace, so it was a slow morning. Not one of the most exciting duties but still important - if sudden space phenomenon or alien races were to show out of nowhere, this station would be the first to know. She looked out the window and zoned out, her eyes locked on earth. With its beautiful blue colour and white clouds. It felt almost as she was starting to fall asleep or dream, as the earth suddenly looked as if a grey void was starting to spread over it. She blinked and shook her head to get out of her sleepiness, then a sudden beep came from her monitor. It was a very special beep for high alert sudden space phenomenon. She glanced at her monitor and the readings and then looked out of the window again. Her coworkers around her started to talk and rose from their chairs, pointing towards the earth. Commander Adesina had not been sleepy when she saw a grey void covering the earth. In a matter of seconds, the earth was completely covered in what looked like a grey dust cloud, that then thinned out leaving nothing in its place.

“Red alert, raise planetary shields!”, captain Ryder shouted from the captains’ chair as he confused but sternly rose and stepping forward. Red lights and warning beeps started to alarm in the room, “Commander Adesina, give me readings on what the hell is happening. Lieutenant commander Nguyen, alarm Mars base and make them send all available forces immediately! Commander Andersen, anything on long-range sensors?” he quickly called the shots, knowing this was one of the worst-case scenarios imaginable and then tapped his communications bracelet, “Ryder to admiral Adesina! Come to the bridge immediately!” “Nothing on long-range sensors!”, commander Andersen quickly answered, followed by commander Adesina, “Analysing on all frequencies, no match so far with any known space phenomenon!”, she focused as sharply as she had ever before done, continuing her analysis in hopes of being able to find out something about what’s happening. In the midst of the sudden chaos, the bridge doors opened and admiral Kamharida Adesina stepped out of it. She looked as alert as ever, but with a grave face and determination in her brown eyes, her long black hair waving behind her. “Status report!” she demanded. “The earth is... gone!” captain Ryder said almost speechless, waving towards the window. Admiral Adesina walked across the bridge, and stopped in front of the window staring out into the nothingness that usually was filled with the earth, “Continue.” “Warships from mars arriving any second, distress call sent out to allies in other systems“ Nguyen responded. “No ships on long-range sensors, no cloaked ships being detected either”, Andersen followed up. Kamhadira continued to look outside the window, seeing several Earth Space Force warships dropping out of warp close to the moon, “Commander Adesina?”, she asked patiently. Elisabeth shook her head, “Not matching any know space phenomenon in our records, currently analysing traces of energy, hopefully, something… will show up” she said with a heavy voice, trying to come up with ideas of how to find out what just happened. Admiral Adesina tapped her communications bracelet, “This is admiral Kamhadira Adesina, hailing all Earth Space Forces just dropping out of warp. Stand by with shields raised and armed weapons. Earth has somehow disappeared. Unknown cause, it may be a space phenomenon or a hostile attack from unknown species. I am commanding this situation, and all captains are given permission to fire at will at the first sight of enemy forces. I will update with further information, Adesina out” Commander Elisabeth Adesina crunched the numbers on her monitor, rotating some scanning patterns and finally, “Admiral! I got something, it’s…”, she tried to interpret the result on the screen, “...an energy wavelength pattern on a deep spatial subspace frequency”. Admiral Adesina turned away from the window and looked towards her commander, “Meaning?” “I’m not sure but… theoretically, it might have something to do with another dimension. I’m still awaiting more results” Captain Ryder and admiral Adesina turned to each other, meeting each others confused eyes, none of them being experts in the science field. “Suggestions captain?”, Kamhadira asked. “Well, if we’re having troubles finding something with our scans, then we need something better. Lunar centre isn’t the best equipped for scans of new space phenomenon”. Kamhadira nodded, “Agreed. Commander Andersen, hail Saturn orbital station” Andersen responded in seconds, “Yes sir, they’re responding” “On screen” admiral Adesina called, and the window turned into a view screen showing Admiral McCall, “Hello McCall, I presume you are aware of our current situation?” McCall showed up on the viewscreen from her own bridge at Saturn orbital station, “Yes, we got the information recently. I just called for all our science vessels within reach to return immediately”. “Great”, Adesina replied, “Will the USS Rokushi be able to make it here?” she asked, worried but with hope. “Yes Adesina, the Rokushi is a bit away but on course for Lunar centre, it should be there in a couple of days at maximum warp. Until then, we’re sending our finest available science vessels” Adesina sighed with relief. The USS Rokushi was the most advanced scientific vessel in their fleet and hopefully able to assist with scans if none of the other ships was able to do the task, “Thank you, McCall. Adesina out”, the viewscreen went out and once again showed the dark view of space and stars. “Anything new?” she asked openly to the bridge, heads shaking and officers replying negatively to her question. Adesina started making her way towards the doors of the bridge, “Alright. I will contact all of Lunar Centre and start to compose a message to be transmitted to all off-world earth citizens. Captain, assign someone to find out all non-earth people who was know to be on earth, so we can contact respectively governments”, the captain nodded and went to his chair, getting to business, “contact me in anything changes. I will update the fleet from my ready room”, she stopped when she came to Elisabeth’s stations, and turned to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I know you can find a clue in this mess. Do what you do best, think outside the box and then we will solve this mystery”, she gave a warm smile towards her. Commander Adesina let her tense face rest and let out a soft smile and gave a tiny nod as she put her hand on the admirals, “I will.” she confidently said, Kamhadira letting go of her shoulder. “The bridge is yours captain”, admiral Adesina said and left through the doors.