Welcome to my side blog, I intend to post details about my ocs and the stories I'm writing here. This includes sketchbook art! I'm going to use a custom tag system to keep things organized, which I will explain under the cut.
Here's a post summarizing my main 3 WIPs
here's a masterpost of currently posted excerpts for the Memento Mori project. summary: slice of life fantasy with a healthy dose of deeper themes around death, family ties, and personal identity. Protagonists are: Evarin, mostly-gnomish part-orc trans woman who works as a medical singer. Her husband, Morianon, half-elf half-quetzalin (birdfolk) archaeologist with a traumatic past. And their mutual platonic partner, K'arik, deaf orcish prince carrying a heavy family legacy.
and a post where I've put some second draft chapters
other projects include:
OC Justice League au, where I smush my ocs and fantasy worldbuilding together with a mix of DC Justice League stuff and draw it primarily in sketch comics. Here's the masterpost for all of that.
Eros and Psyche au for Mori and Evarin
A Disgrace and an Honor, the story of a drow named Xiana who gained and then lost the role of Matriarch. Unable to keep living in the caverns, Xiana travels the outside world and finds new purpose, as well as new love.
Love is an Art, soft romance between Talib and Kouto, two disabled elves attending the same university as students of the arts. They have to accommodate for each other's disabilities as well as the fact that Talib is asexual while Kouto is bisexual, which creates a unique set of personal boundaries to navigate.
I'll be the Monster, a childhood-friends-to-lovers story between Raisha and Kaen. Raisha is half-elf, half-drow, and Kaen is stroi (another elf cousin species). They meet as young children, remain friends for life, and adapt their childhood games into more adult activities as they grow up. They also explore what it actually means to be in love, and whether or not their feelings for each other need a label, as Kaen may be aromantic and grew up with aromantic parents in their own unique queerplatonic relationship.
Blood and Flesh, the story of K'arik's grandfather He'esh, another orcish prince. He'esh watched his cruel older brother Rokar rise to power and threaten the future of their clan. Pushed into an arranged marriage and required to produce an heir his infertile brother can claim for himself, He'esh and his wife Elkha, who is deaf, conspire to end Rokar's tyranny.
tags list below the cut
these are the tags I'll use, with initials at the front for each different story title. (mm, dah, lia, btm, baf)
#world details - worldbuilding information
#characters - posts about the characters
#plot stuff - more details about the main story
#excerpts - for my draft writing
#initials with number = series placement (as needed) #mm 1, #mm 2, as examples
#illustration - art tag
#sketchbook - for sketches
#nudity - for nude art
#courting season - for any art or writing that gets sexy (will be under a cut)
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Dozens of cloven feet left their dusty prints in the trampled grass under the smoky red gaze of the sun. Evarin kept her head bowed under its heat as she followed the other gnomes, staying close to her father's side. He, like the rest of the crowd, barely reached her shoulder; aside from her mother's family, she could only see a few individuals who met or exceeded her height. All together, tall and short, young and old, they left the hushed chatter of the camps behind and knelt together in the shadow of the mountain, circling around a hastily stacked stone altar. It bore none of the decorations or engravings of a private home altar, nor even the careful arrangements of flowers grown around the altars of a nomadic trail. Only a small round mirror sat atop the stones to reflect the sunlight.
An elderly couple stood out from the crowd, wearing the symbols of the Sun and Mountain on their robes. The old man took a handful of powder from the bag his wife carried— a substitute for the more traditional burned incense— and scattered it over the altar. Even where she sat, Evarin could smell its perfume; pine bark and mint. The air was too still to blow the offering up into the sky, so it fell loosely over the stones and settled into their rough texture, piling up in every little dip and crevice.
As the priest began his prayer, Evarin closed her eyes and held her prayer pendant between her fingers, tracing the embossed leather shapes of the Sun and Mountain, and then touching the glass beads that dangled beneath like raindrops.
"Oh, Father sun, we thank you for your protection as we gather here. Please, continue your watch over these camps and the people in them, until we can all return to our true homes. And, dear Father Sun, we pray especially for those who volunteered to stay behind, fighting the fires. Lend your guidance to the water bearers, the branch cutters, the healers—"
Evarin felt her father's hand on her knee, so she took it and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"— and all the others who are keepng our homes and our towns safe. Thank you, Father Sun."
Evarin glanced up to see the priest stepping away from the altar and kneeling with everyone else as his wife stepped into his place. She laid a hand on the rough stones, and Evarin closed her eyes again, bowing lower. Her snout nearly touched the crushed blades of dead grass beneath her, which trembled under her breath.
"Dear Mother Mountain," the priestess began, "we thank you for the protecting hills you have provided here; this refuge, this temporary home. We pray your strength will carry to the towns we came from, to quell the fires and sustain the trees. And may all those using magic to guard our homes and heal the injured also receive your power, that they may carry on their important work. Thank you, Mother Mountain."
Soft murmurs of gratitude echoed the prayer, and Evarin sat up again. She rose with the crowd and took her father's arm as they left. He walked slowly, reaching over with his other hand to touch her fingers. In the smoke-filtered sunlight, every crease in his face, every gray streak in his beard and braided hair, became more prominent.
"You wish you were back home with them, don't you?" he asked. "With your choir, helping your mother and the other healers."
"Of course I do," Evarin sighed. "They only sent me away because of my age." Her snout scrunched, baring the blunted tips of her tusks to the dry air. "As if they think I'm still their young apprentice, fresh out of university. I've got more than a decade of experience, and they treat me like I'm new."
Her father chuckled and patted her hand, looking up at her with a tired smile. "Well, if it helps, I'm glad you're up here with me. I don't know what I'd do with myself if both my ladies were down there in the fire."
"Oh, adda," Evarin's face softened and she leaned over to kiss the top of his head. "You know she'll be alright."
"I know." He cleared his throat and let go of her as they came to the edge of the camp. Other gnomes, those who decorated their prayer pendants with glass droplets, passed by towards the narrow mountain stream while everyone else returned to camp. Evarin took a few steps to join the smaller group, letting her hand linger in the air with a wave to her father.
"I'll meet you after," she assured him. He nodded and walked away, catching up with his wife's family as they passed by.
The stream was barely more than a wet stain on the mountainside, trickling through the rocky bed of a much larger creek. There were perhaps two dozen people gathering on the dry banks, relaxing in each other's presence like old friends. Though most of them were still strangers to her, Evarin knew them like a raindrop knows the ocean. She sat on a boulder beside another woman with sideburns like her own, familiarity passing between them as they caught each other's eye. All around them, there were men with scars where they once had breasts, and other men who kept theirs exactly as they were; women with beards, and women who painstakingly shaved every bristle; and still others who laid no claim to womanhood or manhood at all, or claimed both at once.
As the group settled, one elderly man stood up in the middle of the creek bed and waved for attention. His open shirt left his sagging breasts visible to all, and he proudly bore the marks of pregnancy on his belly like the striations of a canyon wall.
"Welcome, dear friends, fellow children of the waters. It is always a delight to gather with you. Look around, and remind yourself that you are not alone. Even now, in such a time of trouble, we find each other just as every river finds the sea."
He knelt and wetted his hand in the little stream, silently inviting everyone else to join him. Cloven feet sunk into the shallow mud, leaving their soft prints to puddle and change the flow of the water. Evarin felt a rounded pebble catch between her toes; a gift from Mother Mountain for the unspoken prayer in her heart. She murmured her thanks as she dipped her fingers in the stream and touched them to her chest.
Quiet voices whispered their own prayers around her. Some were grateful, others asked for aid. "May I be polished to shape like a stone in the current," Evarin added to her own prayer, digging her damp fingers into her shirt. She stepped back to dry ground and wiggled her toes to drop the pebble she'd picked up. As everyone completed their prayers, the old man drew their attention once more.
"May Father Sun's light guide your way, Mother Mountain lend you her strength, and the spirits of the water help you carve your own path through life." He bowed his head and the group echoed his words. Evarin's heart lifted, her worries at least briefly melting away. A few people left as soon as the prayer was finished, but most lingered, their laughter filling the air as they conversed. Evarin quickly picked up her muddy pebble and tucked it in a pocket. Looking around more carefully now, she spotted her friends Roven and Larel and waved them down, hurrying over the rocky creek bed to meet them.
"There you are!" she signed, mindful of Larel's limited hearing. "I was a little worried you might be in one of the other camps. How are you both? Are you settling in alright?"
"We're handling it," Larel replied with a nervous smile. Roven put an arm around his younger sister's shoulder and gave her a gentle hug.
"I'm sure we won't have to be here long," he signed. "Everything will work out." In spite of his reassuring words, even his face couldn't keep a genuine smile. "It's disappointing that we had to cancel our appointment in [north town] though. Really thought we'd have everything taken care of by the end of the summer." His eyes went up to the smoky skies, and his jaw tightened, making the bulges of his tusk roots more prominent. Like Evarin, he kept those tusks short and blunt. But where hers had been inherited, his were a side effect of the medical treatments he'd gone through to reshape his body. Larel had been through the same treatments, but managed to avoid the same side effects.
It wasn't uncommon for gnomes like them. The methods Evarin and other medical singers used to alter the body's hormones just had a tendency to bring out orcish traits, even in gnomes without any recent orcish ancestry.
"Well, I'm sure you'll be able to get a new appointment set by the end of the year," Evarin assured her friends. She began to walk out of the creek bed and back to camp, and they followed along. "Do you still want me to go with you?"
"Of course we do!" Larel signed enthusiastically. "Even if I can't hear you well, I want your familiar voice in the choir."
"Wouldn't go through with it if you couldn't be there for us," Roven agreed. Evarin grinned and felt her steps lighten.
Superman flies down with Livewire and Volcana and breaks open a fire hydrant as he lands. The ladies are both soaked by the sudden gush of water, which negates their elemental powers and leaves them dazed on the ground. A familiar voice calls out, catching Superman's attention. It's Trout, standing alone with her cell phone, which has a lesbian flag case.
Tr: Superman! Kouto and Lana might be in trouble...
Superman rushes into view next to Trout.
S: Where?
Scene cuts back to the factory where Kouto and Lana are trapped in large metal molds on a conveyor belt. One of the armored guards stands by and gloats a little.
G1: By the way, we're leveling this place to the ground in like 10 minutes. No one will be able to find you.
K: Oh, yeah, blow the place up to hide evidence... Very original.
Back in the city, Trout shows Superman her phone screen.
Tr: He sent me a location a few minutes ago, but he won't answer my calls or texts...
S: Did you call the police?
Tr: They're too busy.
S: Frankly, so am I...
Superman looks into the distance, troubled. Trout turns to him in shock.
Tr: But-!
S: Fire on 5th, three bank alarms, and countless people in danger... I can't just abandon my city... Even for my friends.
the fire gal is a variation on Volcana, because I thought having two spunky elemental lady villains would be fun and lead to some delicious toxic yuri later down the road XD
Superman flies around Toyman's helicopter, smashing right through his miniature copters and planes and grabbing the rotary blades. Livewire flies up behind him and shoots a bolt of lightning at him.
The scene briefly cuts over to show Kouto and Lana in their situation. The armored guards are carrying the pair through the empty automated factory. Kouto appears calm, slung over a guard's shoulder, while Lana is still flailing around and has to be carried by two guards at once.
K: This place is so not OSHA compliant.
G1: Shut. Up.
The guards shove Kouto and Lana into large rectangular molds for molten metal, sitting on a conveyor belt.
K: Seriously? Killing us with molten iron? What is this, the dark ages?
The scene cuts back to Metropolis, as Volcana shoves Livewire aside to shoot a blast of fire at Superman. He shifts Toyman's helicopter to take the blow, which renders the vehicle completely useless. Superman drops the helicopter off on a rooftop while Volcana and Livewire start arguing mid-air. As they're distracting each other, Superman flies between them and pulls them both along by the wrist.
Arranged marriages aren't usually a whole story framework when I write them, but I have multiple stories planned that have at least one character arc/plot point related to arranged marriage.
Story one: young drow matriarch marries her first two husbands, who are already romantically bonded to each other. They get along fine and fulfill their duties. But then unexpected health issues prevent the matriarch from bearing children, which is like 90% of her job in this eusocial species. So her sister takes her place and her husbands only have full loyalty to each other anyway, going along to fulfill their expected duties no matter who the matriarch they're married to actually is. Meanwhile she has to find a new purpose in her life, unable to live as she once did, and she finds real love in the world outside.
Story two: crown prince of an orc clan is unable to have a child of his own, so his younger brother is pushed into an arranged marriage to provide him with an heir by proxy. His wife is deaf, but he does everything he can to learn her manner of communication, hoping to at least make this arrangement more comfortable. Turns out she schemed to obtain this arranged marriage because she has plans for how to run this clan better, so together the pair secretly assassinate the tyrant crown prince and disguise it as a hunting accident. After all, who could believe the gentler, weaker second prince and his deaf wife would be capable of an assassination like that?
Story three: same orc clan two generations later. Arranged marriage is still the norm for these orcish nobles. The previous power couple certainly changed and fixed a lot of problems, but they did not break all the cycles of their traditions. One of their sons is in a miserable arrangement and has taken more after his tyrant uncle, another son is happy with his wife, and the only daughter they had only kept her husband around long enough to bear her own two sons and then separated the marriage but kept the legal aspect to maintain an important alliance. Her eldest son is happily friends with his wife, but her younger son is aroace and demanded to be allowed celibacy rather than go through with an arranged marriage. His betrothed, however, was a dwarven noblewoman and a lesbian. So since the arrangement wasn't expected to produce children anyway, they simply rearranged it to have his female cousin marry the dwarven woman. They'll get along fine as friends, but the dwarven woman is in love with a different commoner orc. This complicates things. They can't exactly call off the arrangement a second time. The aroace orc prince is determined to work with his older brother and break the clan's cycles for good. No more inherited leadership, no more arranged marriages. They hope to be able to leave their crowns behind by the end of the decade, if they can manage to make the sweeping changes necessary to change the way their leadership councils work so nothing will fall apart once they abdicate.
Story four: two noble elven families set up an arranged marriage for their children. A plague interrupts their lives and the boy ends up in a foreign foster family for a few years before returning. After experiencing a life outside his sheltered upbringing, he comes to realize how abusive his birth family is, and how much worse his betrothed has it too. He manages to escape as soon as he is a legal adult. She is stuck behind. He does everything he can to set up all the legal work to free her from her gilded cage. This does include yet another arranged marriage, to make the process of citizenship in another country easier. He assures her she will only have to stay married long enough to fulfill certain legal requirements, and then she can be free and get a divorce. She's a lesbian, so he's set her up in a marriage of convenience with his own foster sister. The two gals get along so well, and freedom is such a joy to have, that they decide to stay together even after it becomes unnecessary.
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arranged political marriage narratives are for me similarly fraught to unplanned pregnancy in that they tend to skew towards a conservative, anti-choice sentiment regardless of the author's intentions or ideology, because the end goal is typically the realisation of an apparently empowering and subversive romantic fantasy where the characters involved experience compellingly turbulent and sexually charged conflict between normative expectations and their own desires, but ultimately find themselves fulfilled in and even healed by the acceptance of undeniably important and worthwhile but conventional (and oppressively gendered) roles like that of the loving husband and wife or parental figures. which is a shame because i Do think that there's some interesting and worthwhile commentary to be explored through these kinds of kinky fantasies that reflect the anxieties surrounding very real and enduring sociopolitical issues regarding autonomy and consent, but when that tension is ultimately resolved by settling into a role that's always been what's expected of you, even if it does allow you to manipulate certain social power dynamics in your favour, it just rings kind of hollow. all of which is a very long-winded way of saying that i wish there were more arranged marriage narratives where the participants never fall in love, but still come to care for and respect one another, and perform the marital duties expected of them out of that affection and desire to both help each other advance their sociopolitical countermoves to subvert the status quo and to survive, using the legal and social trappings that come with their marital status to their advantage to protect each other.
like i really Cannot stress enough how imperative it is that they never feel anything like romantic love for one another - nor are they really friends, although they may like each other's company and even actively prefer it to anyone else's. rather their relationship is comparable to that of two people covering each other's backs in a fight, or two prisoners in the same cell, and there's as much of the beauty of human connection to that as there is tragedy that those are the circumstances that brought them together. and they can absolutely have sexual tension and even consummate a sexual relationship and enjoy it, but it will be unavoidably dubiously consensual at best by design. no flinching from it.
arranged marriage where you love each other so much that you'd both shove the other person through a crack in the wall the moment it opened up in front of you while screaming at them to go, go now, run, and don't you dare look back
Was gonna add some of my own arranged marriage plot ideas but it got too long. So I will just reblog this with a nod of agreement and make a new post afterwards lol
Happy WBW! And happy disability pride month! How disability-friendly is your world? ADA (or world-equivalent) approved or in need of major reform/revolution?
By the time of Memento Mori, it's pretty good! Medical access is free, mobility aids have certainly been improving in leaps and bounds, and there is a standard interspecies sign language. Most buildings are wheelchair accessible, if only because the methods used to build them just had an easier time with slopes than stairs. Like using vocal magic to shape a tree into a house. It's kind of difficult to explain to a tree how to make itself stair shaped.
That said, it's not perfect. And ableism still exists. Interspecies accommodations are also not as widespread as they could be. Orcs often find it difficult to use public transportation because they're just bigger than everyone else. My protagonist Mori, the bird dude, finds that his small size doesn't help him with transportation any better, because his wings and tail make it impossible to sit on the same seats and benches other people use. Elf tails are long, but they're flexible and skinny. Mori's bird tail can't move the way theirs do.
And then of course if a non-orc visits an orcish settlement, they're going to struggle because they're so much smaller than an orc.
And goblins have their own problems, being amphibians with skin mucus that can easily be a detriment when they're living amongst a diverse population instead of just staying in their damp burrows. They dry out, they have to wear gloves so they don't leave mucus on everything they touch, and the more aquatically inclined goblins struggle to walk on solid ground for long periods of time.
Interspecies accommodations are definitely an ongoing problem that will take some time to solve. There are so many different needs to account for.
Not sure if this is the right blog to ask, but I have been reading through your excerpts recently and had a question about the centaurs. (I am also unsure if you already answered this somewhere else or not, so apologies if that's the case)
In one of the excerpts where Mori is on the archeological dig, while the two groups (the archeologists and the centaurs) are eating together, one of the centaur's answers a question or corrects an assumption that centaurs don't eat meat of any kind. However, they way they phrased it came off as condescending, which I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.
Anyway, my question is was that intentional slash do the centaurs (or some of them, at least) look down upon those who eat meat that isn't fish? It is understandable that the centaurs would not eat meat themselves or would be uncomfortable with the topic of eating meat, but do they also think meat-eaters are "below" them? Or am I completely misinterpreting all of this?
oh I haven't re-read the first draft excerpts in a while lol. I don't remember what the exact intention was when I wrote that bit. I think it was supposed to be the centaur just being amused by how surprised these outsiders are about the centaur diet. but there probably are centaurs who think less of folks who eat non-fish meat, since the centaurs themselves have historically been hunted as meat, primarily by the orcs. the assumption about centaur aversion to meat is also why in the much earlier chapters, there was some awkward tension about that centaur diplomat coming to the orc settlement to see old He'esh before he died, while some orcs were butchering and cooking an elk out in the open.
and in my current draft I'll be introducing a similar awkward tension by instead having that centaur diplomat be kinda lost in the woods and come across K'arik right as he's gutting a dire elk he hunted for a ceremonial thing. Super awkward moment of an orc with his hands bloody, standing in front of his slaughtered prey, while a centaur stares him down. all with the additional problem of K'arik being deaf and the centaur not being familiar with interspecies sign language.
Mostly I just want it to be clear that even after many generations, the orcs and centaurs still feel weird about interacting with each other thanks to their history as predator and prey, and centaurs have kept to themselves for so long that no one else knows much about them either, so the ignorance and fear of causing offense just adds a lot of social awkwardness to their interactions.
totally understandable. if i could remember what i meant by half the things i wrote even a few days ago, i would make significantly more progress on my stories than i do lol. i did get that tension you were talking about
it always fascinates me how different races would interact, especially when attention is paid to the fact that they are literally completely different creatures. one of the reasons i feel Zootopia didnt do too well as a racism allegory is because of the use of animals
like, yeah a mouse is scared of animals that arent mice, have you seen the donut scene?? a minor inconvenience for other animals, even ones as small as weasels or a rabbit is a landslide-level disaster for them.
i try to do that with my own fantasy races, though i confess most of the choices i make for them are purely aesthetic or conceptual rather than "how would these two races interact based on what their biology is and how would that affect their culture, if it fdoes at all?"
anyway, thanks so much for answering and good luck on your future drafts!
Mori smells like fish because it is his favorite food, and he probably just went out fishing by throwing himself face first into a lake (he is a bird dude. He can do that)
Gonna try to start a graphic novel for one of my original stories, see if that works out for me. Might not be a good idea for my big long Memento Mori trilogy, but for a lot of my other stories I think it might work.
Especially if i bend the rules a little and do big text blocks to help combine the art and writing aspects more
First try with this format will be A Disgrace and an Honor, which is about a drow who becomes a Matriarch and then due to tragic events has to stop being a Matriach and travel to find help.
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One of the guards roughly pulls Kouto back to his feet and cuffs his wrists. Since Kouto is still wearing a sling on one arm, he's cuffed in the front instead of having his arms pulled behind his back. He also makes his legs go limp, so the guard has a harder time manhandling him.
G1: Get up!
K: ow ow ow! Quit yanking me around!
G1: I said up!
K: I don't think you know the meaning of "cripple". Anyway, doesn't matter where you drag me, Superma-
G1: shut up!!
The guard pulls on Kouto's collar and gives him a nasty smile. Lana is cuffed and gagged with the other two guards holding onto her. Her arms are behind her back, and her ankles are also cuffed so she can't run. She looks scared.
G1: You'll both be dead before Superman has a chance to find you. He's a little too busy cleaning up a mass jailbreak right now.
The scene cuts back to downtown Metropolis. Superman is hovering over the street and looking down at a chaotic mess. People are shouting for help and screaming in fear. Toyman is flying around in a little helicopter with more toy planes and helicopters around him. Livewire is zipping around and flipping off Superman. Another character is running on the street below, emitting massive flames similar to how Livewire emits electricity.
Standing in front of the lifeless automated factory with Lana, Kouto thinks better of this "whistleblower" meeting.
K: ... I think we should leave.
L: Psh! Where's your sense of adventure?
She playfully punches his shoulder, but behind them there's a loud screech like a car coming to a harsh stop. It's an armored truck with shaded windows.
K: shit.
Kouto stands firm, leaning on his crutch, while Lana looks frightened.
K: Lana. Run for help.
L: ohh no
Lana runs screaming while armored guards rush out of the truck. Kouto is grabbed immediately while two guards go after Lana.
Kouto manages to wave off the guard who grabbed him, much to the guard's own confusion. Lana is caught by the other two guards, but she fights back.
L: let me go!!
She snarls and kicks, baring her teeth and lashing her tail. She manages to hit one guard in the chin with her elbow.
G1: She's feisty! Hey, we need those other cuffs! Just tie up the cripple later, this girl's crazy!
The guard who grabbed Kouto looks a little bit lost at the change of plans, but Kouto just sits down and takes the whole situation in stride, sneakily slipping his phone out of his pocket and hiding it on the pavement between his legs to send a text while Lana acts as an unintentional distraction.
K: Not like it's gonna matter. Superman will be here soon. Honestly, you're all wasting your time.
Lana screams for help as all three guards now work to restrain her.
Lana peers over Kouto's shoulder as he checks his phone. His phone case has a Superman S logo on in.
L: What is it?
K: Got a text. Anonymous. Claims to be a LexCorp whistleblower... hmm. They want to meet at a factory, to tell me about weapons manufacturing...
Lana perks up her ears and looks excited.
L: That's the lead you've been waiting for!
K: Looks like it.
L: Well you'd better meet them then!
K: I want to... But I should vet this first.
L: But the meeting time is in an hour! You should go!
Kouto looks hesitant while Lana reads the text herself. But he relaxes and relents in the face of her enthusiasm.
L: I'll join you! Please?
K: It is very tempting... Fine. But we run if it looks like a trap.
L: Oh! this is so fun!
The scene cuts to Kouto and Lana outside a factory in an empty parking lot. Kouto has his crutch now, and there is no vehicle in sight to show exactly how they got there. The factory looms as a grey slab of a building with smoke wafting out of its massive chimneys.
K: ... They're quite innovative, but fully automated factories kind of weird me out, y'know?
L: It is a bit creepy.
A computer screen is shown displaying multiple photos and news headlines. A photo of Superman protecting a parent and child from a security robot over the headline "Superman vs Lexbots: Glitchy security bots go rogue". Two other headlines read "LexCorp Tech Scandal" and "Investigations Ongoing: LexCorp mech-suit theft". In the middle of the page is a professional headshot photo of Kouto in a nice suit under the byline "Article by Kouto Ayashi". Lastly, there's a tabloid photo and headline showing Lana and Kouto walking around together with the caption "Fashion designer Lana Lang seen with new beau?"
Lex Luthor is staring at this display in a dark room, and he looks grumpy. A woman stands some distance behind him in a sleek high collar outfit.
Lx: Mercy.
M: Yes, Mr. Luthor?
Lx: The Ayashi family are good business partners... But their wayward son is getting on my last nerve. He's too good at his job. It's making my work more difficult. Get rid of him for me.
M: Yes Mr. Luthor.
The photo of Lana and Kouto is shown close up during this conversation, and then the scene cuts to show Lana and Kouto walking down a street, dressed in casual clothes. Kouto is in the middle of explaining some frustrations from his work as an investigative journalist.
Happy STS! It's the last Saturday of June, meaning summer is in full swing, Pride is almost over, and we are halfway through the year. Use this as a free space to talk whatever about whatever you wanna. 💚
Ooh free info dump time.
I've restarted my rough draft again for Memento Mori. It it frustrating to start over as many times as I have, but I've finally landed on the root openi.g and story timeline at last, I think. At the very least, it really is just the opening that needed a serious reset! Most of the rest of it is fine and just needs heavy revision work.
I'm still opening the story with Evarin going to do her morning prayers, but instead of the quiet privacy of her home, she has to attend a group prayer because the new opening happens during a late summer wildfire when she and the rest of her town have been evacuated to a campground in a safer area.
One of the struggles I was having with the opening of my previous drafts is that I felt like I was trying to cram a lot of info in all at once and not all the important character or plot details were coming through properly. There was a lot of "as you know" type of dialogue just to set up as many details as possible to try and create an emotional impact later. There was no real context for some essential character emotions and worldbuilding.
So i think my new opening helps solve a lot of those issues. By making Evarin do her prayers with other gnomes, I can immediately draw attention to the things that make her different from them. Her height, the glass beads on her prayer pendant that represent water spirits, the fact that her mother's family are all tall like her but her father is short like a regular gnome. And then as the main prayer group leaves, Evarin leaves her father and goes to a second group and now it's a lot easier to inform the reader that Evarin is trans and gnomes who add the water spirits to their religious practices are typically gender queer in some way. A detail I really struggled to explain in previous drafts.
This evacuation camp setting also gives me more space to make Mori all stressed out, where previous drafts just kinda fumbled with his mental health and I had to come up with more convoluted reasons for him to suddenly be at risk of a self harm relapse because he was just too chill. Didn't have enough pressure on him to really foreshadow or justify a relapse. In real life, of course, things can seemingly happen out of the blue for one's mental health. But in a story you kinda need the narrative to be cohesive and well paced.
But of course none of my new better plan will actually fix the story if I don't write it lol so I really need to lock in
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Talib gently cradles the glass pitcher his mentor made.
T: She died about six years ago.
K: I'm sorry.
T: Heart failure. My parents and Dalmar tried to help, but even the best doctors can't heal everything... I learned a lot from her.
Talib's smile is a little sad and nostalgic. Lana is standing a short distance away and perks up her ears as he tells Kouto about his mentor.
The scene shifts to a low-saturation flashback as Talib continues speaking.
T: My parents were busy with work, Dalmar was busy with school, so I spent my days with neighbors like Jay and Sal, and Irene. Takes a village to raise an alien child, you know?
Young Talib is shown wearing an eye patch and standing between three elderly elves: two men and a woman. All of them have darker skin and tightly curled hair.
T: My powers showed up when I was a teen. Irene took me camping so I had a safe place to work stuff out.
Young Talib is shown here punching a tree down while Irene sits behind him next to a camper van. The scene cuts back to present day, where Lana has approached Talib to share in his nostalgia.
L: I remember that. Pretty sure her funeral was the last time I came to Metropolis too.
T: Yeah.
L: Glad I'm here now, then. It's a much happier time.
T: I'm glad too.
L: I'll be sure to make the most of it! There are so many exciting things I want to do before I leave again.
Kouto and Trout are hanging out in their kitchen, Kouto wearing a purple top with one sleeve on top of a loose pair of white pants, and Trout wearing a short sleeved red cardigan over a black shirt and a pair of jeans. Trout is also putting foil over a pan of some kind.
K: -anyway she's a lot of fun, you'll like her.
Tr: She does sound nice.
The scene cuts to show them arriving at a fenced backyard, where a dark-skinned elf man greets them at the gate. He's wearing a black apron that says "Working on my Dad Bod".
K: Hello again, Dr. Ubora.
D: Call me Dalmar. Come on in! And this is Trout? Good to meet you!
Tr: I made brownies.
The backyard is crowded with people of all shapes and sizes. Lana is already there with Talib. She's wearing a yellow sundress and he's wearing a sleeveless light purple shirt with dark blue pants. Trout and Kouto join them, and Talib points out a few of his neighbors, who Lana is also familiar with.
T: Over there's Jay and Sal, they made my gloves.
L: And taught me a bit of leatherworking.
Talib is then seen hovering in the air with three young children clinging to him gleefully. Here in this neighborhood, the people know him well enough that he doesn't have to hide.
Trout and Lana are also seen having a friendly conversation.
L: Oh yes, I make most of my own clothes!
Tr: That's cool.
Talib is holding a glass pitcher to refill Kouto's cup. The pitcher is orange and pink with a pattern like interlocking petals.
K: Did you make that pitcher?
T: This one was actually made by my mentor.
