I was tagged for this by the tag’s wonderful creator, @sprigofbasil!

Rules: Pick one important setting from your WIP and describe it in 15 words or less. Explanation is optional. Then, tag as many people as you used words!

I kinda wanna do this for both Blackbird and DBHB, so I’ll do one setting from each and then tag the equivalent of the lowest word count because I never know enough people to tag a lot.

WIP: Blackbird

Cuorren des Leonne Merodalia - Seaside Rome has one hell of a gang problem.

Explanation - The country it’s in is based off of Italy and, as the capital, it’s therefore based off of Rome (to a degree). There’s a significant crime problem, what with gangs like the White Eagles and Rose Serpents always competing against each other and getting into violent fights, so, yeah, that’s how we have seaside Rome with a gang problem.

WIP: Desolate Boy, Heartless Boy

Littleship - A farmer, two lesbians, and some elderly folk assemble for the harvest.

Explanation - Littleship is a minuscule hamlet in the middle of rural England. The only neighbours are a farming family and most of the residents are retired pensioners, with the exception of the charming, sapphic parents of Jesper Dale. Also, their farming neighbours are super generous to them all when the autumn harvest comes in.

Tagging nine: @kbcypher, @godlorde, @kristensnotebook, @sapphicauthor, @franzelwrites, @albatris, @joysunshine-writer, @cjjameswriting, @seraphfilth

DESOLATE BOY, HEARTLESS BOY CHARACTER POSTERS [2/3]

The second DBHB protagonist you get to meet is Jesper Rosebud Dale, adopted son of two love-struck lesbians and collector of more dark secrets than anyone else in the county. He pines fruitlessly for Alex and when aforementioned romantic interest vanished into another world overnight, it shatters him. Retrieving his closest friend will mean exposing his most deeply buried secrets - it’s a heavy price to pay, and when the reward isn’t guaranteed, there’s every chance that his wallet will stay closed.

The sun began to set soon after that. Jesper didn’t notice until after the woods around them had begun to turn a deep, bonfire orange rather than watery yellow, but said nothing. He no longer cared if he was late home or if Melanie and Orchard Dale shouted at him for not answering his phone for so long. They may have been scraping sharp edges when they left school long hours before, but him and Alex had settled into a sort of rhythm, working together in a symphony of bubbly laughter and warm silence. It was these moments of unity that Jesper loved to bits and often lamented not having more of. A moment he didn’t want to end.

He sat back on his knees and stretched. Stiffness and sore cramps had seized his back after being bent over their gradually widening pit for so long, and he was pleasantly surprised to see that Five had still lingered in the treeline, though the clearing remained otherwise eerie and deserted. Five’s unmoving stare was fixed on Alex, and when Jesper too turned to face him, he was keenly aware of his pulse raising. It was not just Alex’s face that was perfect and handsome.

DESOLATE BOY, HEARTLESS BOY CHARACTER POSTERS [1/3]

Allow me to introduce you to Alexander Reynolds Marlowe, lifelong friend of ghosts and carrying an attitude so big it could give you a black eye. He’s resilient and sharp-tongued, full of daring and an intriguing sort of charisma. Yet in spite of all of this, he is unfortunately oblivious as hell, to the great frustration of both Jesper and the malicious spirits trying to make his life a misery.

Alex was in a mood when Jesper caught up to him. In fact, it was more than a mood - it was a foul-tempered, brow-creased, lips-turned-down sulk.

Alex practiced The Sulk in the same way that ordinary people practiced origami or judo. He honed it to a fine art after many years of diligent training. He was the unrivaled master of the pouting lips, sullen brow, and sunken shoulders combination, and could speak in such a way that frustration and exhaustion rolled from his tongue without a coherent word every being said. It was no wonder that Alex wasn’t religious; the only thing he worshiped was his own misery.

Tagged by the wonderful @cavewriter to do this. Thank you!

Rules -  Share the last line you wrote, then tag as many people as there are words in that line.

The last line I wrote was for Desolate Boy, Heartless Boy, so I guess here’s your first peak at that:

This must be how ghosts feel, Jesper thought fleetingly, this is what it feels like to have the life sucked out of you.

Tagging: @miss-ives-stark, @godlorde, @dragonsateyourtoast, @agayskywalker, @kpwritings, @aariewrites, @fictionalthrills, @sharkboywrites, @kbcypher, @pixel-letters, @coppercreationcreator, @morriganwrites-0124

It’s not the 23 that I’m supposed to be tagging but oh well. You don’t, of course, have to do the tag if you don’t want to, and if you want to do it but haven’t been tagged then join in anyways and just say that I tagged you to do it.

PS: Been home from Cambridge for about 15 hours and have already managed to screw summer over and potentially break my foot (again). I hope I’m just being melodramatic.

Tagged for this one by the awesome @lspielvogel. Thank you!

The words I have to find are blue, hear, madness, and beautiful, and I’ll be looking for them in both of my WIPs, so here we go.

Blackbird:

Blue - 3 occurrences

She chose the foods in a hurry – strawberries and blackberries, and a handful of something blue from an unlabelled jar – and escaped the kitchen and its thick, hate-poisoned air as imperceptibly as a minnow slipping through a trawler’s net.

Cuorren looked blue when they stepped outside. Not in a rainy way or a tragic, poetic way; just blue.

Hear - 4 occurrences (excluding ‘heard’ and ‘hearing’)

She couldn’t see her sister, but she knew she was there, and she wondered if she would hear her quickened breaths if she turned her focus away from the downstairs commotion.

If they were fortunate, he would drag the intruders into the tunnels and deal justice down there, where Nicia couldn’t hear them choke on their mistakes.

Maria strained to hear a few stern words from the driver whilst the person – a girl, presumably – paid her fare.

“One conversation,” she countered. She hated how her voice cracked on ‘one’. “It’s crucial. One conversation, and you’ll never hear from me again.”

Madness - 0 occurrences

Beautiful - 3 occurrences

Thunder is beautiful, she decided.

In the pre-rush hours, when most of the city was still groggily turning about in their beds, Cuorren was admittedly more beautiful than she had expected.

High Cuorren Station was the only relatively beautiful building in the district.

-

Desolate Boy, Heartless Boy:

Blue - 0 occurrences

Hear - 2 (excluding ‘heard’ and ‘hearing’)

Alex was so quiet that Jesper almost didn’t hear him.

If his tutor, Mrs Hawthorne, called the register, he didn’t hear or answer.

Madness - 0 occurrences

Beautiful - 3 occurrences

June was a beautiful time there, too.

His ghosts were already at peace, wandering the beautiful earth by choice, keeping watch over him in a strangely familial sort of way.

He turned back and waved over his shoulder as he walked away, first to Alex (who returned the gesture halfheartedly and looked unnervingly beautiful when outlined in gold by the sinking sun) and then to Five, who shimmered and faded out of sight as a rich sunbeam broke through the forest canopy and illuminated the spot where he had been stood.

-

I’m honestly amazed that ‘madness’ hasn’t showed up in either of them, especially in Blackbird. I’ll have to amend that at some point.