my word is GREAT and i'll be pulling from How to Fail a Field Practicum!
G
Grease stained his rough knuckles. One thumbnail was split. A shallow scrape brushed the back of his wrist, just deep enough to be pink, not quite deep enough to bleed.
R
“Revenge requires calories. Blood-iron first, then dismantling Jeremy.”
E
“Extremely unrelated to the battery you two are supposed to be fixing.” Cadnos’s voice cut through their bickering.
A
Adiro smirked and leaned against his table with both palms. “Uncle, you flatter me~”
T
“Thank you for that astute observation, Piers.” Cadnos rested one hand beside the damaged battery, carefully not touching it. Nobody with a survival instinct touched a ticking spell battery barehanded.
tagging ;; @theink-stainedfolk - @starboard-writes - @pertinax--loculos - anyone who wants to take part!
your word is EXPLAIN!
taglist for htfafp: @echever ; @moss-covered-cat ; @ashen-crest ; @ceribrennanwrites
(lmk if you want to be added/removed!)
divider by @uzmacchiato, so cuuute ❤
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thanks for the tag, @theink-stainedfolk! let's grab a line from how to fail a field practicum!
Cadnos nodded. “Good. Davenport sees the spell rhythm. Piers sees the physical fault. Both matter. Anyone who tells you maintenance is either-or is trying to sell you a repair bill.”
He turned the battery with a brass-handled probe. The ticking skipped, sped up, then settled into something worse.
“Theory,” he said, “says this battery should not explode.”
A tiny spark crawled down the side of the casing and snapped against the table ward.
“Applied work is what lets you keep your eyebrows.”
No one laughed.
tagging @pertinax--loculos - @author-a-holmes - @kitcatling - open tag!
taglist for htfafp: @echever ; @moss-covered-cat ; @ashen-crest ; @ceribrennanwrites
(lmk if you want to be added/removed!)
divider by @uzmacchiato, so cuuute ❤
sorry i've been gone! things have been bad, my health has been bad, my mental health has been bad, everything has been bad.
but
things are better now. and i'm trying to write again. and i'm hopefully going to be drawing soon.
here's a snippet for a drabble i wrote for how to fail a field practicum to try to get me back into writing for these dorks again.
taglist for htfafp: @echever ; @moss-covered-cat ; @ashen-crest ; @ceribrennanwrites
(lmk if you want to be added/removed!)
Jason dropped the battery with a grunt. The table wobbled under the sudden weight.
“I thought werewolves were supposed to be strong,” Zeph muttered, leaning casually against the support pillar.
He scowled at her. “You’re a vampire. You carry it.”
“What, and rob you of the chance to show off? Wouldn’t dream of it. I may be a monster, but I’m not cruel.”
His eyes locked onto her and narrowed into slits. Instead of speaking, he roughly unsnapped the protective casing over the battery and tossed it aside. It clattered across the floor, skittering into a corner. The battery itself hummed as vivid blue mana sparked and danced along a copper column inside. At first glance, everything seemed fine.
But Zeph could hear a ticking. Very quiet, very subtle to even her new enhanced hearing. She tilted her head slightly, studying the battery’s interior through the circular plate glass window on the side. “Hey. Fleabag. You hear that?”
“Yeah.” Jason leaned closer, pressing his palms against the table. “Put on your protective glasses.”
Zeph frowned and glanced between him and the battery. “The case window has protective lining-”
“And I’m about to open it so if you don’t wanna lose those fancy undead eyes of yours, put on the damn goggles.”
She scowled but pulled the polycarbonate goggles from her bag. He was already unscrewing the brass casing around the battery, twisting the screwdriver with sharp jerks of his wrist. She settled the glasses onto her face and tightened the strap behind her thick copper curls. “Why are you opening that? The diagnostic tools-”
Jason set the brass case aside with a thud. Then he leaned forward, so close that a little spark of mana kissed the tip of his nose, and inhaled deeply.
Zeph stared at him. “Are… Are you sniffing the battery?”
“Shut up.” He sniffed again before straightening and setting his hands on his hips. “Overheated copper thread. Sour resin. Burnt insulation under the left seal.”
“...no.”
His lips twitched. “No?”
“No! We are not diagnosing a battery with your nose! Go get the diagnostic prod!”
“Why would I waste time with that glitchy old thing–”
Her scowl deepened and she stepped forward, hands on her hips, eyes flashing crimson as she narrowed them at him. “Jason Piers-”
“Oh no, the full government name,” he deadpanned, voice as dry as Bryndis’s backup fertilizer. “I’m quaking, Deadbolt, truly.”
Her fangs throbbed. She squeezed her hands into fists, nails digging into her palms until the sharp scent of her own blood flooded her nose. Even Jason smelled it, his nostrils flaring, his eyes snapping down to her hands. “I swear to fucking–”
“Davenport.” Cadnos’s voice had never rang so sharp before. He leaned between them, rapping his knuckles on the table, the brisk knocking enough to distract her from the boiling frustration inside her for a moment. “Check the left seal.”
She took a deep breath and turned to the battery. Sure enough, the copper thread beneath it had warped black at the edge, resin bubbled around the join in a neat, ugly crescent. She closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath that she didn’t need but helped her keep from outright murdering the smug werewolf in front of her.
“Well?” Cadnos prompted behind her.
She took another deep breath. Exhaled it slowly through her nose. “The…insulation is burnt under the left seal. And yes, the resin is sour.”
Jason leaned closer, handing her a fresh tube of insulator gel. “Here you go, Sparky. Your dainty little hands should be perfect for this delicate work.”
She snatched the tube from his hand. “I hate this fucking college.”
“No, you hate that I’m right.”
“A working nose is not the same thing as a working brain, moonie.”
Jason’s smile didn’t fade. It sharpened. His fangs gleamed as his top lip curled over them, a snarl as much as a smirk. “And a big vocabulary isn’t the same thing as a personality, Davenport.”
The lab went too still for a moment. A sharp pain lanced through her fangs; a sudden red hot urge to bite tear bite kill jolted so hard between her ribs that she didn’t realize she was taking a step forward.
He didn’t step back. His eyes, cold and hard and vibrant green with gold flecks around the edges, locked onto her face. The air between them grew instantly hotter as his scent sharpened into a bitter, aggressive warning. The only visible sign of his aggression was his stiffening shoulders, muscles tensing under his grease-stained T-shirt.
The battery let out a cautious tick.
“If you two are done,” Cadnos said from behind them, “fix the damn battery before it explodes.”
They glared at each other a moment longer before Zeph forced herself to break contact. She dug her fingernails back into the little crescent gouges in her palms until the sting grounded her boiling temper. She took a deep slow breath, letting the hot hair inflate her dead lungs until they ached.
She picked up the insulator gel and turned to the battery.
good morning~
welcome to magical maintenance and fieldwork~
aka cadnos's daily stress test~
Cadnos scowled at his students as he always did. “Slates in lab-safe mode,” he called over the racket of his students unpacking their toolkits. “We are two months into the semester; I should not still need to remind you of this. Withers, put that hair into a ponytail unless you like being on fire.”
“This is fascism,” Withers muttered as he reached up to pull his lengthy blonde hair behind his head.
“No,” Cadnos said with the exhausted patience of a man who has aged ten years in the past three, “this is basic laboratory safety.” He stood behind his desk, arms folded over his chest, and waited while the class settled down. His stern steel eyes flicked from Zeph to Adiro to Parker to Brody.
Zeph craned her neck, trying to see past him to the box on the desk. It was a decently sized box, about the size of a cat carrier. On the side in large letters were fun little warnings like DO NOT CHARGE UNATTENDED and STORE BETWEEN 40°F AND 80°F FOR OPTIMUM RESULTS. “Is it a battery?” she muttered to her screwdriver as she set it on the desk between a dull pencil and a socket wrench. “It has to be, doesn't it? I don't think we're advanced enough for-”
“Professor, Davenport's talking to her screwdriver again!”
If Zeph was still capable of blushing, she would have a face as red as the chipped paint of her pocketknife.
Brody smirked. “Sounds like she might have a...screw loose.”
“Boooo-” Jason called from his slouched seat in the back of the room.
Cadnos didn't hesitate. “Brody, you'll be cleaning the lab between morning and night classes.”
Brody slapped his hands on the table, sparks flying out of his wide-brimmed hat. His static mouse familiar squeaked and scuttled under his rune-etched toolkit, whiskers sparking with anxious electricity. “What?! Why?!”
Cadnos's tone never wavered. “No puns or dad jokes in my lab. Says so on page 3 of the syllabus.”
Withers leaned over to Brody. “See? Fascism.”
“Don't talk to me,” Brody muttered, burying his face in the crook of his elbow.
taglist for htfafp: @echever ; @moss-covered-cat ; @ashen-crest ; @ceribrennanwrites
(lmk if you want to be added/removed!)
divider by @uzmacchiato, so cuuute <3
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
thank you, @winterandwords!! have a snippet from how to fail a field practicum!
She thumbed her slate awake as she crossed the walkway toward the Yard and opened her schedule. Magical Maintenance and Fieldwork, Wardworks Building, Lab 3. Tool checkout: pending. Unread message: Mom.
She dismissed the last notification without looking at it.
The slate immediately replaced it with a weather alert. B1 shimmer advisory possible after midnight. Sensitive transformed persons may experience pressure symptoms.
"Absolutely not,” Zeph snorted, shoving her slate back into her pocket. “I have class.”
TAGGING: @pertinax--loculos - @the-flowing-river - @akindofmagictoo - open tag! no pressure, of course~
taglist for htfafp: @moss-covered-cat, @ashen-crest (lmk if you want to be added/removed!)
Guys what do you think? Is this too exposition-y? Or info-dumpy?
Zeph snorted as she dragged a step stool to the fridge. “Ah yes. Exactly how it's named in the scientific journals. Sleepy plant mode.”
“Hey, I'm allowed to call my biological functions whatever I want!” The dryad opened a plastic tub by the glazed window. The fertilizer packet rustled in her knobby wooden fingers. "Besides, you name every inanimate object within twenty feet. I refuse to believe you don't call your period your “moon cycle” or some shit.”
Zeph strained her arm to reach the little cracked basket on top of the fridge. “Do I look like a werewolf to you? Also, vampires don't technically get periods.”
Bryndis stopped stirring her fertilizer into her decaf coffee and frowned at her. “Yes, you do. You literally spent half of last week in your bed moaning about cramps and crying because of your stupid chocolate allergy.”
“First of all, my chocolate allergy is a crime.” Zeph hooked the basket with her fingers. “Secondly, that was a post-turning endocrine echo.”
“A period.”
“A medically distinct inconvenience.”
Bryndis snorted into her mug. “You memorized that dumb pamphlet, didn't you?.”
Zeph froze in the middle of squeezing the blood-iron supplement into her rice bowl. The rust colored paste oozed between the mushrooms. “You know about my pamphlets?”
“I know about a lot of things.” Bryndis leaned over, studied the rice bowl, and grimaced. “It looks like engine grease.”
“Engine grease wishes it had this many nutrients.”
Genre: cozy-chaotic urban fantasy mystery
Vibes: magical trade school, civic bureaucracy, slow-burn rivals-to-lovers, cursed infrastructure, found family, supernatural labor rights, and two emotionally constipated night creatures trying to out-snark their own feelings
Welcome to Veyr, a modern magical city where:
fae pharmacies sell remedies that actually work
werewolves have full-moon accommodation paperwork
ghosts can file housing complaints
magical trade students learn curse cleanup for credit
corporations sell “inclusive” ward kits that absolutely are not as inclusive as advertised
every public safety system has at least one form, three warnings, and a lawyer hiding somewhere in the walls
The story follows Zephyr Davenport, a newly turned vampire artificer trying very hard not to become a scandal again, and Jason Piers, a werewolf mechanic student with anger issues, abandonment issues, and the emotional openness of a locked toolbox.
They are classmates at Veyr Applied Technical Institute, nicknamed the Vat, where students learn the practical magical skills that keep the city functioning.
Zeph wants to keep her head down, pass her classes, and rebuild the future she lost after a university ritual scandal ended with her turned into a vampire.
Jason wants to prove he belongs, prove he is not dangerous, and absolutely not admit he has a crush on the mouthy vampire girl who keeps correcting his work.
Then a routine field practicum goes violently wrong when a Wonderwide SafeThreshold ward kit misclassifies transformed students as threats.
Obviously, this becomes Zeph’s problem.
Even more obviously, Jason is involved.
Book 1 working title: HOW TO FAIL A FIELD PRACTICUM
Featuring:
🛠️ vampire artificer with anxiety and a grudge
🐺 werewolf mechanic who flirts by being a problem
🌿 cheerful plant-person roommate who sleeps in a dorm-approved soil berth
👻 ghost curse-cleanup instructor with OSHA horror stories
🍲 blood-iron noodles as emotional support
📋 magical bureaucracy
⚙️ cursed tech
💜 slow-burn “we are NOT friends” nonsense
🏙️ a city full of magic, labor laws, bad corporate products, and extremely weird public transit
Tagging as: #gear and fang #how to fail a field practicum #htfafp
Taglist: @moss-covered-cat - @ashen-crest -
lmk if you want to be added! join me in the chaos~
