Trial By Fire

Chicken

Winter, 1996. It’s the semester before graduation, and Adora is bonding over drinks with a few soccer teammates. Out of nowhere, one of them brings up a game that Adora’s never heard of before - “gay chicken.”

Naturally, Adora has questions.

(Catradora Modern AU, 18+ high school setting. Falling in love in the 90s. One shot. Explicit)

Friends With Benefits

Catra has been struggling in the lowest rungs of the Vegas cocktail scene for about a year when she comes across an interesting offer online - $100 to get fed on by a vampire. Sure, Catra’s never actually met a vampire before, let alone gotten her blood drawn by one. But she’s done worse things for less money, and shifts at the casino are drying up fast. Why not let some Craigslist rando suck on her neck for a few minutes?

As it turns out, there are quite a few answers to that question. They’re just not the ones Catra was expecting.

(Big Bang longfic in progress. Catradora Modern Vampire AU. Smut heavy, but fluff coming soon 💕)

Option Two

There are many ways to seize control of a human mind. Hate, envy, thwarted desire - all are powerful tools, and all have been wielded by Light Hope to great effect in the past.

But not this time. This time, Light Hope chooses differently.

(Catradora canon-divergent AU - alternate “Promise” fic. Angst with a happy ending. Non-explicit. Not actually centered on Light Hope she’s barely even in it 💀)

Pinned

Catra flees through the Whispering Woods. Adora chases after her. And instead of grabbing her by the wrists in their final encounter, Adora pushes Catra a bit further.

Things diverge quickly from there.

(Catradora canon-divergent oneshot set immediately following their confrontation in the Whispering Woods. Fluff, angst, and boatloads of sex. Explicit)

Shift

As the war reaches its final days, Catra and Adora struggle to define the boundaries of their newly-restored relationship.

(Catradora missing scene - prefinale. Spiritual successor to “Don’t Go” by annacharlier. One shot)

Vague Notions

When Adora’s lifelong battle with anxiety tips from “manageable” to completely out of control, she winds up in the last place she ever expected; a mental health treatment center, smack dab in the middle of nowhere. And she’s far from the only client here in desperate need of assistance.

(Catradora AU with full ensemble cast. Journal format from Adora’s POV. Very long fic, but worth it. Explicit.)

Wanting

The war is over. Horde Prime’s death has ushered in an era of unprecedented peace in Etheria, with She-Ra and the Alliance at its helm. And against all odds, Adora has feelings for Catra - loves her, even. Catra’s never had more to be grateful for in her life.

Somehow, it’s still not enough.

(Catradora post-canon. Very fluffy “first time” fic. One shot. Explicit.)

Next on the docket: Big Bang 2024, Despara Au, Interdimensional AU longfic.

(screenshot is from the mobile game "Too Hot To Handle 3" that I played with Mary in Montreal. You can play as a nonbinary bombshell but have to deal with this sometimes. 10/10, worst game I’ve ever loved. Not at all related to this post)

Life/fic updates:

1) I have finished my first draft/outline of my newly-updated version of The Adora Show. I’m going to wait until I have a proper first draft before I scrap the current ao3 version, but we are now well on track for me to, uh…retcon the hell out of myself. I’m anticipating that this fic is gonna be a bit more of a "niche interest" than my other stuff because I’m playing around with craft a bit (and bc it’s rated M instead of E D:) but *I’m* excited, so…yeah. More updates to come.

2) I’ve been off tumblr for a while now and uhhh….yeah I kind of don’t miss it? I miss the people a lot (some of them) but I am getting way more done without this app sucking my life force out. So yeah. Might be flirting with a longer hiatus tbh.

my dads is undeniably the most dramatic (which is fitting, knowing him). his coworker was in the middle of a bipolar episode, drunk off his ass, and had a standoff with the cops while my dad was inside. He managed to talk him down from committing suicide by opening fire. I’m frankly not sure the guy would be around without him today, not to mention whoever he took down in the process.

my mom had been on her way into work a few years ago when the building went into lockdown. we later learned that the man was targeting members of her demographic group at random, right on the street she’d just left. she missed a confrontation by about 5 minutes, tops.

my most objectively harrowing story is the time I had to dodge a ricochet at the shelter I was living in. My most traumatizing, however, was Madison. I was about a mile away when it happened - chatting with a waitress, I remember, when the cops screamed by. I went walking down the block that night and found a neighborhood of dark, silent houses, with a cable news channel glowing in every window.

now, my sister. 15 minutes away by from the ICE shooting on foot. she mentioned this casually to us in passing, after a long and completely unrelated conversation. when I expressed my shock at the fact she hadn’t mentioned it, her response was "well, it’s resolved now".

resolved. yep. sure it is.

im omitting stories that aren’t mine to tell in this post, but suffice to say, it gets worse. there’s also the stories that are so commonplace at this point they aren’t worth telling - the lockdowns, the near-misses, the "almosts". the point of all this isn’t how bad my family’s had it - we’re privileged in a lot of ways. more than anything the question I’m asking with this is…why? Did it solve anything, all these guns? Did it stop the democratic backsliding and state tyranny this country has long been pissing its pants about? Or did we let the bogeyman in through the side gate anyways while countless innocents paid the price?

im aware that he doesn’t use the account much if at all but for me this only heightens the mystery. my best bet at this point is that he stumbled across my 275k "BFS goes to rehab" fic and thought "hm. this is a person who needs cheering up, perhaps." if this is the case, he was absolutely correct - I received the notification in rehab. I believe he was follower number 62 at the time.

Ok im back bc i had a HUGE breakthrough with writing and it seems relevant to post here

so I haven’t talked much about this, but the main reason The Adora Show (and pretty much all other fic work) has been SUCH a slog this past year is because i have recently settled on an ambitious long-term creative vision, which is to become an indie game designer. As you can imagine, getting into this field for the first time at an age where lots of people have already finished their masters is…intimidating. And I have a LOT of work to do to catch up - work that has felt frustratingly hindered by this lovely but insanely-complicated fic obligation. I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve felt tempted to just give it up and retreat from tumblr in shame.

here the thing tho - I want to create narrative games. That’s the primary reason I’m getting into this field. And narrative is a very complex field that takes a long time to master, same as any other. I’ve often caught myself thinking, "man I wish there was a way that I could write a "practice work" that nobody will ever attribute to me so I can get all the kinks out first!"

….lmao

this whole time I’ve been trying to hack my way through this fic to get to the "real narrative building", but there is literally nothing stopping me from treating this like a novel?? A sequel novel, maybe - nothing I can do about the Truman Show belonging to someone else. But writing an AU also provides a unique opportunity to preserve the essence of your characters while getting super creative with psychological source material. There is so much room for experimentation and growth here! And my whole thing of feeling embarrassed to show people work with dumb character names on it can easily be circumvented by like. changing them. And then handing that version over to an editor.

anyways

this doesn’t affect you at all. In fact this will almost certainly make publishing take longer because now I’m going to try and actually make it good. But I’m just really excited to have found a way to FINALLY merge these disparate fields of my life in a way that will (eventually) make everyone happy. If this eventually results in the lost weirdly polished Truman show fic anyone’s ever read, then so be it!