timetravelingpigeon

[timetravelingpigeon]

Am I overusing dialogue tags? Perhaps.

Am I justified given that there are six people in the scene and two thirds of them use they/them pronouns? Perhaps.

[timetravelingpigeon]

So. I was reading through some Outer Wilds fic I hadn't touched yet, and discovered something:

Someone else has a Hatchling named Olivine. And it's a pretty big-name story, too.

Welp.

Is it a big deal? No, not really. Am I going to change it? Not after nearly 30k words I'm not. Does it still make me go "Aw, dammit." Yes.

Oh, well. Gonna be weird reading their fic, but such is the danger of naming a nameless character, especially when you have to stick to a naming scheme.

[timetravelingpigeon]

Chapter 5 of Mysterious Buddy is up!

Good news, I get to add new character tags! Bad news, oh god I'm writing someone else's character for the first time in over a decade!

[timetravelingpigeon]

Ow, oof, the pain of writing multiple characters that share the same pronouns after only having to deal with one at a time for the previous work. Worse is that it's the 'they's that are overlapping. Watch as fight a tug of war between clarity and not dropping characters' names every five seconds!

[timetravelingpigeon]

Find the Word Tag Game

Man been a hot minute since I've done one of these bad boys. Remember when I used to do tag games?

Tagged by: @artdecosupernova-writing My Words: front, back, side, up, down, around Tagging: Anyone who wants to participate! I've been away so long I have no idea how many of the writeblrs following me/I'm following are still active, lmao. Your Words: salt, bitter, spice, sweet

Just gonna pull from MBMP since it's been a long time since I worked on the OG (and haven't done much of anything more with it in the time after I went on hiatus here.)

Front

“Okay, okay, okay,” I said, catching my breath and winding down. “I’ve got one. What’s the most ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ way you’ve died?” Once more, they had to think on it. “I was orbiting the black hole at the center of Brittle Hollow — don’t ask how I got into that position in the first place — maneuvering so that I can get caught by a gravity elevator and lifted to safety, when this huge chunk of the crust breaks off in front of me. I didn’t have enough time or thrust to get out of its way, so I just…” They illustrated by smacking their palm against their other hand’s fist. “Killed me instantly, which I guess is better than dying either from internal bleeding or a cracked visor in a near-vacuum. You?”

Back

“So no turning around and heading back to the first area.” They held up their hand, first finger partially curled. “Not that we have a way to get back there.” First finger straightened. “Not that we want to go back there. Unless you want to finish reading that book you didn’t like.” “It’s not that I didn’t like it. I mean, I wrote it; I’d better like it. But the fact that they had it at all creeped me out.” “Yeah, I’m not sure how the third party got my ship log either.”

Side

“No offense, Morgan, but the fact that you didn’t smash your way in here like the Incredible Hulk leads me to believe these doors are indestructible even for you.” “You’re right, I wasn’t able to break through either one on the way here. But who knows,” he shrugged, positioning himself about a step away from his target, “could be that they’re only reinforced from one side.” “So you’re thinking it might work because it’s a— ” My sentence was cut off by a metallic bang! as Morgan karate-kicked the door straight off its hinges. And in half. “… ‘push’ door,” I finished.

Up

They tilted their head slightly, “I don’t know how we’re any more lost than we were when we first met. Your suit’s also been keeping track of where we’ve been, right?” I gave a flat, “No.” “Oh. Does your HUD not have that feature?” “I don’t have a HUD, period.” Mentally, I groaned. Why did their space suit have all these fancy features when it looked like… well, that? Meanwhile, here I was, wearing the best humanity has to offer and coming up about as short as a toddler at a track meet. Freaking aliens, man.

Down

“So it’s not darkness but nothingness, then” “Seems like it,” they replied, then held down the launcher’s trigger. Apparently, that was supposed to do something, as they tried releasing and holding the trigger once more. When their third attempt likewise did nothing, they twisted a few things, pulled at some others, and detached the launcher from its shoulder mount. After giving it a look over, they delivered a couple of solid smacks near the base where the scout had initially been resting, then held the trigger again. “Is something wrong?” I asked. “Yeah, it’s not coming back,” they answered, giving the device a final shake for good measure. “Which is concerning given that I’ve recalled this thing from halfway across the solar system before.” “Oh, so it’s, like, gone gone.”

Around

Flicking their mic’s switch back on, they told me in a flat tone, “My time loop ends with our entire solar system being destroyed by our star going supernova. I’ve been trying to fix it for a while now.” Then, quietly, as if admitting it would be a betrayal, “I’m not sure I can fix it.” “Jesus,” I breathed. “Mine’s just some stupid thing that I don’t even know what it is but it sure as hell isn’t our whole planet getting annihilated. Man, screw these stupid suits,” I said, already feeling around for whatever mechanism kept my helmet on. (That was the first step in taking this suit off, right? Removing the helmet?) “You need a bigger hug than this thing allows.”

Thanks again for the tag @artdecosupernova-writing!

[timetravelingpigeon]

Chapter 4 of Mysterious Buddy has been posted!

Pretty dialogue-heavy chapter, but one that I feel needed to happen eventually.

[timetravelingpigeon]

Oh, yeah, definitely going to have to remove the "not worn down by The Horrors quite yet" tag thanks to Chapter 4. (Olivine's still a good bean, though. This is an immutable fact of the universe.)

Fellas, is it cringe to hold hands with another time traveler as you vent about your existential dread?

[timetravelingpigeon]

Chapter 3 of Mysterious Buddy is up!

Congratulations, you get to know why the "liberties taken with scale" tag is on here now! ::)

Also, our two protagonists finally find out what they have in common.

[timetravelingpigeon]

Hey.

Guess who forgot Olivine has a scout launcher despite describing it literally the paragraph where they were introduced?

Guess who realized that they really should have shot their scout into the blackness at the end of chapter 2? It wouldn't have done anything, but...

I swear I remember it later! But, yeah, I think that one's edit-worthy. It'll bug me until I fix it, and it's like a three sentence fix.

EDIT: So it was longer than three sentences. Still going to add it.

[timetravelingpigeon]

I think I may have to remove the "good bean who hasn't been worn down by The Horrors" tag after this next chapter. I'm getting a better feel for Olivine's character, and I have discovered that they actually have very much been worn down by The Horrors. They're just good at hiding/ignoring it.

Unfortunately, Col is also good at blundering directly into people's trauma buttons. >:3c

[timetravelingpigeon]

Next chapter is up! We finally learn my Hatchling's name! (As well as our viewpoint character's name, for those of you not coming from The Life and Life and Life of a Time Traveling Pigeon.)

I also made the executive to go back and tone down Col's mouth to keep with the PG-13 rating. *Takes away Col's f-bombs and places them on a high shelf.*

[timetravelingpigeon]

A wave of regret is washing over me now that I’ve pulled the trigger on posting the fic.

This was expected, so fortunately I’ve braced myself a bit.

All I keep telling myself is “if I get 50 hits by the time this is all over I will consider this exercise a wild success. A kudos would be the cherry on top. And even if it doesn’t succeed, oh well; I wrote and had fun, that’s all that matters.”

And hey, would you look at that, I’m already 1/5 of the way there on the hit count. Wahoo!

[timetravelingpigeon]

First chapter of the monstrosity is up.

For my followers: Play Outer Wilds.

For the Outer Wilds fans seeing this: I'm gleefully smashing my WIP's time-looped protagonist and the Hatchling together and have decided to make it everyone else's problem.

[timetravelingpigeon]

Nope, changed my mind. I'm inflicting this on everyone. I'm in too deep not to.

So... long time no see.

Yeah the excerpts never materialized, huh? Sorry. I thought I was going strong, but then I stopped maybe a week after I made that post. Long and short of it? I wrote myself into a corner.

But I am writing again! There's just one problem:

It's not the novel.

It's Outer Wilds crossover fic with Col and the gang.

Help!

And I can't even post the damn thing! Partially because I haven't written fanfiction in fifteen fucking years, so I have no idea if I'm getting the characters right; and partially because who the hell reads Original Work crossovers on AO3?

It might show up here. Might.

[timetravelingpigeon]

No, it can't get posted here. The end spoils some major bits about Morgan's superpowers and where they come from in rapid succession. A couple of middle bits do, too, but I think I can write around those.

Then again, the question arises of why I want to hide Morgan's full suite of powers (because yes, it's more than just the durability and super strength.) Which I don't have an answer to.

Maybe it's because I'm afraid that it would make people put things together about what fandom LLLTTP was originally a fic for? It is, unfortunately, pretty damn obvious if you're familiar with said work. But said work is also 15 years old and pretty obscure, so IDFK.

So... long time no see.

Yeah the excerpts never materialized, huh? Sorry. I thought I was going strong, but then I stopped maybe a week after I made that post. Long and short of it? I wrote myself into a corner.

But I am writing again! There's just one problem:

It's not the novel.

It's Outer Wilds crossover fic with Col and the gang.

Help!

And I can't even post the damn thing! Partially because I haven't written fanfiction in fifteen fucking years, so I have no idea if I'm getting the characters right; and partially because who the hell reads Original Work crossovers on AO3?

It might show up here. Might.

[timetravelingpigeon]

So... long time no see.

Yeah the excerpts never materialized, huh? Sorry. I thought I was going strong, but then I stopped maybe a week after I made that post. Long and short of it? I wrote myself into a corner.

But I am writing again! There's just one problem:

It's not the novel.

It's Outer Wilds crossover fic with Col and the gang.

Help!

And I can't even post the damn thing! Partially because I haven't written fanfiction in fifteen fucking years, so I have no idea if I'm getting the characters right; and partially because who the hell reads Original Work crossovers on AO3?

It might show up here. Might.

[timetravelingpigeon]

June 9th again, huh? How did that happen? And I just started writing again after a months-long dry period that started, well, not too long after the last June 9th. Even finished a scene. Hm. Something about the season I suppose.

Speaking of, brace yourselves, I’ve got more excerpts incoming. They’ll likely be in no particular order, probably posted on no particular schedule, and will definitely have no particular beginning or ending point in mind. I just have a vague need to get my blog back up and running... this damn story is my one point of stability in this, er, interesting year.

*whispers loudly* Also, I crave validation.