#hijackproject

What's your favorite excerpt from this WIP so far?

Here's a little piece from an early chapter I drafted when I was first starting to get used to the siblings' character voices. Enjoy!

Who is your main cast? Describe as many of your OCs as you can cram into one post.

Character intros are a little bit hard for me, but here goes nothing: Introducing the Banta siblings!

Don't let their size fool you, Ty is the older of the two at 23 years old. They're also the more "responsible" one (according to them, at least) and are in charge of their shop, the Manifold's finances. They're also bad with emotions and change. Like, really bad. They might be constantly tired, but since the incident at the parade, their stress levels have shot through the roof. Normally, their world is the simple and familiar checks on a budget list paired with a handful of candies stolen straight from their sister's stash, and they like it that way. Shame some things just don't last forever.

Likes: anything salty, loud alternative music, puzzle games, spaceship schematics, their sister, beating their sister in games

Dislikes: loud noises, when the internet doesn't have an answer for that very specific question you tried to search

Tina, on the other hand, is louder, brasher, and all around better at everything (again, according to her). Now 20 years old, she's been working in the shop for a good five years and acts as chief mechanic for anyone who wants to bring in their little gadgets for her to take a look at. Taking things apart, finding out how they work - that's just how she operates. On her off days you can find her chasing any and all distractions, ranging from indulging in her sweet tooth to winning more than a few screen games, nagging her sibling to join all the while. They really do need to take a break every now and then. Just because they're trapped doesn't mean the world has to end... right?

Likes: anything sweet (but mostly chocolate), girls, the smile on a customer's face after a job well done, the occasional spirit, her sibling

Dislikes: people who say they're fine when they're not really fine, this whole situation the planet's in right now, losing to her sibling at games

Both siblings are Filipino and queer (agender aroace; lesbian respectively)!

Then, there's the Grenadier.

Gideon, to those who know him off the show, which is basically nobody. For someone who's a galaxy-wide TV personality, he hasn't actually gotten close to any of his competitors. The Competitor life is a lot less glamourous than he imagined, but he's here now, and his PR coach says he's doing fine, so he's probably doing fine. A 25 year old killer-for-fun, his trademark tricks in the Contest include explosions of any shape and size, and magnitude. Apparently that also applies to people exploding at him whenever he encroaches on their territory. Whoops. He'll be fine, probably.

Likes: physical contact, sleeping in, the massive subsidies winning a Contest match gives, the beach, his rocket launcher

Dislikes: the fact that murder is in his job description, bugs, the glaring, unforgiving gaze of the cameras, being bored, thunderstorms

Gideon is black and bisexual!

Hi! Thanks for your question!

The most important thing to note is that the Rehan System was originally an Earthen colony (which is a detail that's become more solidified the more the plot is clearing up in my own notes). By the time technology advanced enough for the Inner Circle to start taking permanent residents, the medical advancements that allowed humans to sustain life-threatening injuries were just starting to be sold. The Contest's first "season" was a test run of the tech, but once it proved to be successful, the tech was revealed to the public (specifically those who could afford to be brought back from the brink of death), and the Contest with it, now rebranded as a celebration of how far humanity had come.

Introduce the WIP you’d like to highlight this month.

For the time being, I have exactly one WIP. The working title's Hijack - it's a science fiction novel set in a far-flung galaxy filled with human colonies, though the story only takes place on one: Mylda, a planet-wide metropolis where people from all walks of life can congregate. I talk more about it in my writeblr intro/pinned post, and I'm going to make a genuine introduction to the work post soon. (from now on, posts relating to it will be tagged with #hijackproject to make it easier to search.)

The story itself centres around Ty and Tina, two family-bound mechanics trying to get by in the city after they're trapped in their district with people who kill for grand-scale entertainment. Things get worse when Ty is drawn into the sport against their will, and both have to struggle to maintain their close relationship through a brand new kind of war.

It'll be written in first person, and I'm playing with the idea of having two POVs, one for each of the siblings. The plot itself is almost completely developed, it's just the finer details I have to worry about now. Some themes it covers are found family, familial and platonic love, morality, responsibility, parental expectations, self-discovery, reclaiming one's own identity.

What's the world of your WIP like?

This is one of the lesser developed parts of my WIP, since the story is confined to a single planet -but I'll do my best!

The Hijack Project takes place in the Rehan Star System - a solar system consisting of eleven planets, all but one habited by human life.

Culturally, the system is divided in two. The Inner Circle, the seven closest planets to the Rehan star, is where most commerce and trade occurs. Higher class citizens tend to reside here, if not also having vacation homes, whether on the temperate Iya or the bustling Stalire. The Contest is normally recorded on the fourth planet, Apollos; renowned for its constantly changing seasons and double sets of rings, though parts of the landscape has been devastated over the years by the sport.

Then there's the Rim. The outer four planets, two of which are mining colonies with barely any population. Mylda, where the story takes place, is the highest regarded of the four, a planet made entirely of one single city of the same name. The planet is populated with technicians, hackers, black market profiteers, and the like, but since it's a Rim World, no other planet's government bothers to interfere.

It's divided into ten districts, named simply and orderly - One through Nine, and then the City Centre. Ty and Tina work and live in the Centre, and on Mylda, it's the best you could ask for.

Hey! Thanks for the question!

The average citizen can piece together a few things from her limited "public presence": she's wealthy, or at least wants people to think she is, (as the symbol she uses when she's broadcasting is a gold plated pendant); she has a sick sense of entertainment, and she has enough technological skill to hijack an entire city grid, or at least someone under her hire who does. Some have theorized she hates the Contest or someone involved in it, other who've done research into the Contest itself think she's after the medical tech. Still others have heard that moniker in black market circles, usually attached to hefty orders of clinical supplies. No one's certain yet of what she's collecting.

HELLO again >:)

A piece of tech that's in the works right now is the district separation system (thinking of calling it just that for the sake of simplicity lol). It's the big electrical gate that, as implied, keeps Mylda's different districts divided. It's also the bit of tech that gets hijacked with the parade. Under normal circumstances citizens would just have to flash a piece of identification when passing through, and this is the part that I'm working on, exactly how it does it and what kind of ID you need. Either way the whole grid's been overridden so no motorized vehicles can't get in or out. In a city planet like this one, it's very much an inconvenience!