#parawrites

Tagged by the ever amazing @saltymaplesyrup, though I have been less than active on here, or anywhere else in fannish contexts, so thanks for thinking of me! Tagging forward, @gilgamish, @thequeenofthewinter, @kookaburra1701 and whoever else is around (this is purely based on occasionally opening my dash and finding your lovely usernames still active in it, no pressure to share at all).

I have been slowly and quietly chipping away at "To Wit," a Pathfinder WOTR Wip that I started some time ago, abandoned for ages, then came back to. Experimentally writing this whole thing first before even considering posting it. Trickster mythic, ship involving evil gnomes of the Hellknight conviction, shameless smut, and much metaphysical musings, along with a reprehensible amount of puns. Excerpt below the cut for the latter two.

Behold I am, for once, on time. Tagging @mareenavee @polypolymorph @thequeenofthewinter @dirty-bosmer @thana-topsy @archangelsunited @gilgamish @tallmatcha @saltymaplesyrup @snippetsrus @kookaburra1701 and whoever else has the spoons for Tumblr + TES nonsense. From Gathering Souls. Teldryn POV.

Darkwater Crossing was one of those towns that shouldn’t exist, but did anyway in innumerable multiples, minted with near-identical precision into the land, from the heat-baked sands of Hammerfell to the glacial, gravely shores of the Northern Sea. Teldryn thought that if he closed his eyes, the sounds alone would erode all specificity, and he could be back in High Rock, or in Morrowind, or on Solstheim, walking upstream along his allocated stretch of life with no discernible difference and no sense of time’s toll. The muffled, rhythmic beat of picks against stone; the acrid smelter smoke; the resinous bite of fresh-cut timber and bitter tar—all the same. The rasp of mineral dust on workers’ shouts, as ingrained as their miners’ cant. He’d been here before, with his patron or without, and each visit compacted into strata of previous repetitions, and there dissolved.

For a moment, he allowed himself to unknow where he was.

It happens. Thank you so much @thequeenofthewinter, @mareenavee, @saltymaplesyrup, and @dirty-bosmer for tagging me into this. I am for once, on time, but only on a technicality. Tagging forward, @rainpebble3, @archangelsunited, @gilgamish, @thana-topsy, @tallmatcha, @inquisition-dragonborn, @elfinismsarts and really whoever wants to do one of those. From an as of yet untitled project, set in TES Oblivion for a change of pace.

Rules:

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love!

Tagging forward: @dirty-bosmer, @thequeenofthewinter, @saltymaplesyrup, @polypolymorph, @archangelsunited and anyone else who has a sudden itch to tackle the self-promotional genre :>

WELP I'm failing on WIP Wednesday because it's that kind of week, but I can do this one. The problem with "recs" is that I'd much rather be recommending other people's stories, so instead of recs, how about "the ones that forced me to the page, for better or for worse?" These are all stories that just grabbed me by the throat, tumbled out, and wouldn't let me sleep for x amount of time.

Tagged by the wonderful @mareenavee @dirty-bosmer and @friend-of-giants. Tagging anyone who would like to do it, and has the spoons! A line from your fic that makes you laugh From "What Hilda Saw" It’d all started, as such things tended to, with a ritual gone catastrophically wrong. Some inept mageling who fancied himself a great conjurer read his great-great-great-grandmother’s half-eaten copy of Liminal Bridges (who, precisely, had chewed up the tome Gzztd’xia’kl neither knew nor cared, though he suspected his current flesh-prison probably had something to do with it) and then—as such things went with mortals—decided to Try Things At Home.

A line from your fic that makes you sad From Always Read the Fine Print

In the beginning, we were five.

Not the real beginning, of course — not the one that had eroded into the ephemeral textures of a mirage, the amorphous dream of an improbable world, as unlikely as this new one. Vera remembered her early childhood in the way one might remember something you read once in a book with a torn-off cover. “Once upon a time, there was a world that thought it would last.”

A line from your fic you're proud of From Whispers

In a tiny village buried in the Jeralls, so small it has neither name nor placeholder on a map, and the locals simply call it “Stonefalls,” or else home, she comes across a small shrine to her Goddess. On it, two gold coins, a wilted thistle, a bowl of milk, small pots of pigment: lapis blue, alkanet red, copper green. If she lets her eyes drift out of focus, the objects dissolve into the indefinite shape of a beckoning hand. North, then.

And so, she has her directive.

A line for your fic you think could have been better All lines could likely be improved, but I'm lazy. A line from your fic that makes you want to punch a character From Gathering Souls

“It’s been two weeks, and you’re still stormier than yonder thundercloud.” The Nord huffed and tugged at his beard. “Divines preserve us from broken hearts and thwarted loins. If you’re quite done with the lovesick puppy parade, sellsword, there’s work to be done.”

A line from your fic that makes you go 'aww' From My Dear

Elenwen’s expression softened. “Barely old enough to cavort with, by my standards.” She brought her hand to Maven’s hair, traced the new strands of silver there with her fingertips. “I’m glad you stopped plucking them out. It suits you.”

Maven snorted. “Too many to pluck these days. What am I, an anxious chicken?”

A line from your fic that's full of symbolism

From From Bitter Roots Sebille—that is her name, or was once, though in this moment she knows herself otherwise. Still, she holds on to that voice, to the rough edges of it, and claws her way through the cobwebs of another’s memories, but there’s no end to them. They are arranged as a lattice, a web, a slow snare, and as she races after the fraying treads in her rage-fueled defiance of the spirit’s spitting resentment, she gets herself snarled. So now, she—he, it—is Ryker. Once an elf, then an old elf, then just old, with his mortality biting at his heels, and why should they live if he is to leave for the Halls, why should they live—doesn’t matter who, their very existence is a cosmic injustice levied against him, personally—if he is to rot in the cold earth.

A line from your fic that contains an Easter egg From Always Read the Fine Print, 3DNPC Easter Egg Sven shrugged. “Closest one’s in Whiterun, but you can mix a potion or two at the Sleeping Giant, if you’ve got the ingredients.” He shuffled from foot to foot, looking vaguely embarrassed, and shot a quick glance at Vera. “Mother used to tend to the… umm… womenfolk and such, but her health took a bad turn after those frosts last winter. Oh, and there’s that priestly healer type, too—new fella, from Skingrad. Valgus, something or other.” He sniffed in condescending distaste. “Bit of a stuffy cottonbelly, if you ask me. You might still catch him at the inn if he hasn’t left already. Either that, or he’ll be fussing over the standing stones up the road.”

A line from your fic that's shocking

From Gathering Souls

Moonlight above, the world in grey and black. The forest speaks in woven whispers. He hears them with his beast ears and laughs inside, where his true form lurks. He laughs at the freedom that tastes of hot iron. Salt across his tongue. The exquisite scent of guts and fear and death on his muzzle. Yellow in the black, a light, a camp—a human camp—where shadows churn and tremble, jumpy and peering into the blinding dark. He’d gotten a taste, so many tastes he’d not known before—the ripe burst of berries, sour as sunlight, the thick starch of roots, warm with earth and worms, the bitter tang of flesh that died in terror. He is more than he was, than she was, than they were, together, the purest form, the apex of his becoming. All paths lead here. His choice is justified. Justified. Just defined. Deified. Defiled, they’ll say. He needs no justification, those are human fetters and he is more, more, more, and hungry. A rustle in the underbrush. He sniffs. A fox, a scrawny russet thief. On another day, he might be inclined, but not tonight, not when the camp invites. Invites. A vise. A vice, they’ll say.

Let them. A line from your fic you want to talk about more

Tagged by the incomparable @thequeenofthewinter, @mareenavee, @gilgamish and @dirty-bosmer. Tagging forward @polypolymorph, @thana-topsy, @archangelsunited, @tallmatcha, @saltymaplesyrup and whoever else has the spoons for Tumblring these days.

From an upcoming chapter of Gathering Souls.

“Where will we be staying?” [Teldryn] asked. Failing to get whatever long-winded horse shit the bastard might feel called upon to dispense, he cast his employer a curious look.

Undnar was grinning from ear to ear. “Stendarr’s mercy bugger me if she didn’t just turn dung to gold, would you look at that!” he boomed. It netted him a few turned heads from harried-looking locals, and at least one offended scowl.

Teldryn, unsure of what had the bard beaming, followed his gaze.

That's it, I declare Tumblr writing meme bankruptcy. It's now "WIP Whatever" which is to say, irrespective of what or when it is, feel free to share... something.

Tagged for WIP Wednesday by @mareenavee and @thequeenofthewinter —thank you, lovely friends, for the prods. Tagging forward at random, for whatever you're willing to share, whenever that might be: @inquisition-dragonborn @polypolymorph @rainpebble3 @saltymaplesyrup @kookaburra1701 @gilgamish @tallmatcha and whoever else wants to throw something in the hat but can't keep track of Tumblr <3

Gathering Souls (TES Skyrim); Vera POV

Tagged by the incomparable @mareenavee​, @thequeenofthewinter​, @rainpebble3​, @dirty-bosmer​, and @saltymaplesyrup​ —thank you all for reminding me that it’s Wednesday. Tagging forward, @inquisition-dragonborn​, @polypolymorph​, @changelingsandothernonsense​, @snippetsrus​, @gilgamish​, @tallmatcha​ @archangelsunited @thana-topsy and YOU (yes, yes you know the drill). I’m cheating a bit. This is technically finished, but it was a WIP until a few hours ago. This is entirely your fault, @changelingsandothernonsense​.

It’d all started, as such things tended to, with a ritual gone catastrophically wrong. Some inept mageling who fancied himself a great conjurer read his great-great-great-grandmother’s half-eaten copy of Liminal Bridges (who, precisely, had chewed up the tome Gzztd’xia’kl neither knew nor cared, though he suspected his current flesh-prison probably had something to do with it) and then—as such things went with mortals—decided to Try Things At Home. When that failed, as it always did, the mageling got creative and brought a goat into the process, since nothing spelled Dark Ritual quite like a sacrificial goat. Gzztd’xia’kl wasn’t sure who the goat had originally belonged to. From what he could tell—which wasn’t much, since grasping the nature of his prison from the inside proved more challenging than smiting it in a fit of bloodlust from the outside—the goat’s name was Hilda; it was (as far as this particular species of meat went), entering its waning years; and it hung onto the mortal coil by a thread of sheer, unadulterated spite.