#tmoh

What are you gonna do when you see the town you have grown to love burnt to ash ∩^ω^∩

Anyways time to disappear for 6 months

In response to this, I really wanna dedicate myself to my "600 words a day minimum" rule for my fic The Meaning of HOPE. That's 18,000 words (short novel length) in a month! I wanna expand it beyond the borders of the Bad Sanses as well and include more AU cameos and plot points as well (including expanding Star's character development and their themes involving forgiveness and redemption through actions). One UTMV creator has stepped down, a major pillar of the community at that, but UTMV isn't over even though Underverse is getting shelved. Cross will live on, and so will the community. People are cranking out content all the time and I want to contribute and show how much Undertale and the Undertale Multiverse matters to me. People might not be receptive of a non-Sans protagonist (and a self-insert at that), but I want to pour a LOT of love and care into the story and make it feel in depth and natural. Maybe it won't be for everyone, but The Meaning of HOPE is gonna be my love letter to Undertale. Because while my heart breaks for what we've lost (and the very thing Ink wanted to prevent unfolding once again) we can always create more and pass the baton onto the next wave of creators.

Hello, everyone! Happy Thanksgiving!

I have some really exciting news. I think… I think… I’ve done it! The Mother of Hope is back on! At last, I’ve finagled the chapters into an order that feels acceptable to me. I’m SO ready to re-release it.

But first! I want some help. What I’m looking for is a reader who has not read my XenaFics yet. This person must know XWP pretty well, love Gabrielle, and at least be open-minded to the battling bard’s affection for her daughter; plus they’ve got to be able to stomach very dark themes and scenes (dealing with horror, heartbreak, violence, and sexual assault). This special someone must also be willing and able to read about many, many words of XenaFic relatively quickly. And finally, they must be able to objectively judge whether a complicated story is coherent and flows well. Is that person you? Someone you know? If so, then please contact me and/or them, and let’s get this ball rolling! Thank you so much!

Hope to hear back soon,

ShadLad

Friday the 29th of December I’ll be doing a live, 8pm UTC+01.00. I’ll be spilling some mystery of Hawkins secrets and tell you about my upcoming series:)

Joxer, Amarice, and Armand burst into the stable in a riot of noise just as Gabrielle got Handsome to trust her enough to eat from her hand.

The next thing the bard knew, Xena was shouting that she was pregnant.

Strange, Gabrielle thought in a daze. For one to be carrying life within her, use her breath to signal its impending arrival, she sure chased it all away.

Color, air, and sound fled from the boisterous group upon the announcement, or Xena took it all into herself.

The sole blonde of the group could only stare at her lover. Within seconds, she decided that the outburst had to be a joke. Gabrielle nearly laughed; the warrior princess could be so strange sometimes, made such off-the-wall comments and had the oddest methods of diffusing tension. Her own face cramped into the exact expression of amused disbelief she had worn upon hearing her newborn be accused of murder. NO! Gabrielle struck back against the sensation. This has nothing to do with Hope- She- It can’t be!

Gentle reassurance and authority flowed from Xena’s lips even as her speech went sideways. “Gabrielle, this is as strange to me as it is to you. I don't understand it, but it’s true. I felt it with Solan, and I feel it now. There’s life within me, and it’s good!”

Really? That’s what you have to say to me? Gabrielle watched the realization make the brunette freeze a second after the words were out of her mouth, then bowed her own head. You mean, unlike with me? Because I was carrying evil itself? And you would invoke the name you told me not to speak? she wondered faintly. Creeping control inched up her spine and then spread out to the tips of all her extremities. Lock those feelings down; bury them. You can’t deal with them right now. Be happy for Xena. Reassure her. It’s all you can do.

Her beloved accepted her offered embrace with grateful relief.

“Congratulations,” she said numbly before mentally checking out of Spamona altogether.

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I have decided that re-uploading /The Betrayer/ is unnecessary at this time but have added the Intertwine chapters spanning "The Debt" to "The Quill is Mightier..." to their rightful positions.

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“Nevermind!” Hope interrupted whatever else Aphrodite might have to say. “I’m leaving this place. I’m not afraid of a mere mortal. And I’m big enough to face that warrior-witch now! I’ll do it myself!”

The goddess slapped a hand over her own mouth to stifle a guffaw. “You’re big, huh? …Ha!” she burst out anyway. “You have the same little-dog attitude your mother does! Oh, you two are too-”

Hope’s hunger hit her in a sudden, all-encompassing pang, and she threw herself at Aphrodite just as Gabrielle had the night she gave Hope up. “What’s she like, Aphrodite? Don’t just tell me anymore! Show me!”

And in another echo of that night, the goddess sighed and put a hand over searching, imploring eyes. “Fine.”

A slideshow of some of Aphrodite’s favorite iterations of Gabrielle revealed themselves to Hope. The recklessly brave young girl tricking a cyclops and bossing around Titans; the dork whacking herself in the head with a quarterstaff in Amazonia, then playing a pan flute while doing a goofy jig alongside Xena and Argo, later conducting a chorus of stalagmites; the little hothead telling off the ex-Destroyer of Nations multiple times, whacking Joxer countless times, and uselessly trying to put the pinch on a barman; the reverent meeting Aphrodite for the first time; the sweetheart reassuring and soothing people wherever she went; all the characters contained in the same small person whom Aphrodite had come to adore flickered and danced in the darkness of the goddess’s cupped palm.

“So, anyway-”

“More!” Hope commanded, wrenching the goddess’s gauzy shawl in her fists and making Aphrodite nearly fall, desperate to be closer to Gabrielle.

/

“H-hey, kiddo. Rough night?” Aphrodite was partway through asking when the bard whipped around at her touch, took her in for a tenth of a second, and then squeezed her tight, sobbing into her neck and inner shoulder. “Oh, sweet pea,” she breathed past the forming lump in her own throat. Her curly head rested against a silky one while one of her hands lifted to pet the girl’s honey-blond tresses for several minutes. “Woke up and realized you were stuck with us, huh? I hate when that happens!” A true grin spread across her lovely face when Gabrielle stopped crying so hard and began to chuckle ruefully.

“Yeah, realizing I might be stuck with y- Ares for the rest of my life is not a happy thought, you know?”

“No kidding! Imagine having to live with the big meanie for a thousand years like I have. That’ll really wreck your day!”

The pair laughed hollowly some more. Words abandoned them all too soon, however, as each struggled over whether to say more or nothing at all.

When Aphrodite could not stand the awkward silence any longer, she declared, “Well, let’s try to get back to sleep, yeah? Maybe we’ll wake up, and this’ll all just be a bad dream.”

“Yeah…” Gabrielle agreed. “…Yeah.” But she did not move from the spot or extricate herself from Aphrodite in the slightest.

“No! Hope!” Just as she had leapt into the fray to stop Meridian from killing Khrafstar, Gabrielle used her staff to pole-vault herself to Xena and Hope.

“Well, you get this clear, Xena. No matter what she is, she is my daughter. Don’t come between us…”

But rather than take out a doomed aggressor, she charged the supposed victim. But in that move, she once again snatched her baby away from her best friend’s deadly intent. Screaming Xena’s name, she tumbled with her child into the lava pit.

/

Hope erupted from magma an hour after her mother tackled her into it.

Only one living thing remained in her father’s darkened temple. The lump curled up on the floor between the chasms stirred weakly. Black fury marred its face when its fluttering eyelashes snapped apart. Jumping and contorting into a crouching position, Seraphin prepared herself to kill her childhood friend.

Hope sent the mortal away with a flick of the wrist the second the zealot leapt up to shove her back to her death. “Peace, priestess,” the daughter of darkness muttered.

“Goddess!” Seraphin cried, instantly lighting up where she lay in a heap on the floor, a smear of blood from her side creating a trail to her. She again shot to her feet and then further jumped for joy. “I knew the betrayer couldn’t finish you!”

“Yeah, betrayer,” Hope agreed dully. Her face slumped into her hands as she released a weary sigh.

/

The swoop in her stomach told Gabrielle that she was still falling to her doom, her daughter no longer in her arms.

But her feet were on hard ground. Slippery-with-the-dew-so-often-found-in-the-forests-of-Britannia ground, but hard ground nonetheless. British foliage surrounded her.

Apart from her, Xena and the person the bard had been several months ago sat around a campfire eating quietly.

Much sooner than she usually would, Past Gabrielle stopped. The spoon she had brought to her lips hovered in the air for a moment; the next, it fell into her bowl which too fell to the dark earth.

Xena once more took up the unfamiliar role of trying to strike up conversation. “That bad, huh? Let’s just go with what we were talking about before and leave the cooking up to you from now on, hmm?”

Her friend nodded listlessly.

Xena sighed. “I’ll clean up. Why don’t you go lay down and get some rest? May-” One of her hands dropped her own bowl to grab Gabrielle’s as the girl pressed past her. “It will get better, little one. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but it will. Pr-”

A shadow of a smile tugged at the bard’s mouth though a cramp pinched in her cheek. Too, she pressed her fingers over lying lips, not wanting to hear another promise that would soon be broken. “Good night, Xena,” she said, the first thing she’d uttered since echoing the warrior’s own words back to her about the results of becoming a killer. Her hand very briefly caressed her friend’s cheek but fell before the woman could hold it to her face. Gabrielle trudged the few paces away to their bedrolls and collapsed onto them without waiting to hear a return greeting.

The Gabrielle unnecessarily hiding in the bushes watched as light blue eyes filled with tears until the warrior had to close them.

The pale face they were set in lost more color. And as the life drained from Xena, her lips began to move again.

For the first time ever, Gabrielle witnessed her friend pray over her, her light and spirit, a second time. Too bad they’d already been squelched, the bard thought dully.

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