The Tea Tree

I hate when the weather abruptly warms or cools. We have been having beautiful winter weather the past few weeks, but this week it decided to go from 20s to 50s, and my body hates it. Joint and muscle pain, sinuses, the works. Come back to me, winter!

Anyway. I have for you a bonus scene I wrote two NaNoWriMos ago, when I once again got an idea and added an unnecessary plot point to AG. And this one was big enough that it required me to restart rewriting part II, as I need to properly incorporate it in. I think it'll be worth it, though -- it adds an overarching storyline that will lend a mystery-novel quality to the second part, and allows the telepaths to showcase their shit.

Title: None
Genre: Fantasy
The Troops: Nur, Mahli, Meander, Rose May
Status: Incomplete and rough
Summary: Sometimes, to fight a monster, you have to combine monstrosities.
Prompt: NA
Rating: PG-13 for disturbing implications, violence
Author's Notes: This scene can't appear in AG proper since it's told strictly from Rose May's POV, but I just had to write it as it is such a fun moment to miss. It's also a fantastic moment for Mahli, who gets to show off his telepathic powers for a good cause for once. Poor Rose May, though. She probably wishes she would die in that fire Tadhg set after living through this.

( Someday, people will learn to stop attacking Rose May )

Poor Nur, never gets to kill anyone. Maybe someday, love.

Tschuess.

And of course they picked the happy one.

( TW anyway for mentions of war and past trauma )

This will be a cotton candy story, but more due to my and Lynette's dry senses of humour.

Also, too much fire metaphor, jeez.

Tschuess.

Making Nur, Lin, and Lynette in the Sims today, and as I'm giving Nur her traits I'm like "Hmmm, do I want to give her Commitment Issues? Wait, she has Flirty, Party Animal, Daredevil... Dammit I'm making her into a stereotypical frat boy."

Probably will replace Party Animal with something else, as she already has "Night Owl" for that.

So I thought up a Nur story last night, and for the most part it stayed with me.

( TW for genocide )

But come on brain, usually Nur stories are HAPPY. What's this nonsense?

I actually hope to bring it around to something more heartwarming, but it will require a timeskip, I think, so we'll see.

Now back to reading about WWII war crimes (I really need to read happier Wikipedia articles) and cleaning the house.

Tschuess.

Okay, it isn't really. But with how I write him, sometimes I wonder.

( Hafstra's role at the moment is BE UTTERLY CRAZY MAN )

I'm not too pleased with this scene, mostly because I don't like using my vampires as deus ex machinas (Mahli would probably make more sense here, but I imagined Nur doing it, so there it is). In the last draft, this scene happened upon Rose May's first meeting with Hafstra, where Rheanna was there to provide the translation for "my wife". But somehow I forgot to have Rose May ask why Hafstra was in Welen in the first place; instead they just talked about him being arrested and boring shit like that.

So yeah, may end up rewriting those scenes so this can go in its proper place. Let me know what you think, though.

For cottoncandy_bingo, I wrote a story about young Nur and Rose May visiting a strip club.

( Here, have an excerpt. )

I'll post the whole thing later, but this was fun to write. IT was especially interesting because I used the Etymology dictionary for slang and words, so now the dialogue is slightly more authentic 1800s, though probably in subtle ways that you won't notice.

Now to play video games.

Tschuess.

Title: Night of the Moon
Genre: Fantasy
The Troops: Nur & Co.
Status: Complete, spellchecked, briefly reviewed
Rating: PG-13 due to some minor violence and possibly unsettling topics. Also booze, basically.
Summary: It is the longest night of the year, and the vampires have a way to celebrate...
Prompt: cottoncandy_bingo Caressing/Petting/Stroking, Party, Bruise, Person & loved one(s) injured/sick simultaneously, Cuddlepile
Author's Notes: This gave me a great opportunity to develop vampire culture, figure out what their lives without humans are like, and also develop Nur's backstory to the point that I feel awful for what I do to her later. Enjoy!

( This story is >5K words long. No TW that I can think of, but some mentions of violence, pregnancy, and birth defects )

So last night I went to a work party at a nightclub in SF.

Partying has always been something I've avoided because crowds, loud noises, lots of people, and booze are not on my "I love this" list. But I've been lonely, and need to get out of the house, and figured I'd go. It was a 70's costume party, so I bought some bright accessories at Target and went. I got a few compliments on the outfit, but people who went actually 70's or just extravagent took the stage, and that's fine by me.

At first it wasn't so bad. I was able to chat with a few people one-on-one, or in a group, but once people split out into groups, I didn't really know what to do. Eventually I was just sitting people watching, as is my preference, but multiple times got dragged onto the dance floor by well-meaning people. I'm not much of a dancer, but did my best. Time seemed to be going slowly, though, and by 10PM I wished I had driven so I could go home early. The party ended up going on for two more hours, and by that point I was very much tired, drained, and ready to go home.

Overall ,it definitely wasn't a bad experience -- better to try after all. But crowded, loud, alcohol joints definitely aren't my thing. I much prefer the more interactive insanity of a LARP or D&D game, or a game of bowling, or just a dinner party.

So yeah. In other news, some more prose.

( Drunk vampires and a cuddleball )

My muse has run out of steam again on this, though, so I need to think on it more because I will finally get to finish it up.

Tschuess.

( On Arebe... )

( On Malanee... )

Little blurbs that came to me. Tegre encouraging Kader to go back to doctoring, and then the rewrite of Rose May and Meander's house being burned down. This time, everyone lives (except maybe Tadhg. He may be sort of screwed if someone doesn't pull Nur off). As for why Meander didn't just have Nur teleport them all out -- that would have been pretty tiring for Nur, and he had a feeling the arsonist could be found by someone dedicated enough to search (Almas, I imagine, is out somewhere, otherwise he'd be helping). Meander, being very focused on getting his wife and kids out of the house, didn't want to divert his attention to it, and unfortunately cannot teleport (if he'd been properly trained in time, he'd be actually be better at it than Nur).

Also: that vampire insult came to me and I just HAD to put it somewhere.

And I'm pretty sure Rose May eventually just breaks down into sobbing because my god, if I saw my house burning, I'd do the same thing.

Sleep time.

Edit - I just realized that Rose May and Meander's twins have the most traumatizing babyhood ever. First their house is burned down, then their city is BOMBED. Those kids are going to have such bad PTSD and barely remember WHY.

Edit Again - I just realized without context this may make Rose May seem like a Helpless Woman (TM). For those unfamiliar with my work: Rose May has asthma during the 1800s. Meander was helping her out and getting her out first because he knew she would collapse and die really fas. He was seriously planning to go with her to get their kids, but when he saw the roof was already going, he decided to get her out and just get some severe burns for the sake of all of them surviving.

The NEXT time their house is on fire (... Yes, it happens again. See "traumatizing babyhood for twins"), Rose May gets to the kids faster than Meander. Basically: Meander and Rose May are both BAMFs who will never, ever sleep the night again. >.>

Tschuess.

I keep having fantastic dreams that I can barely remember the next day -- dreams where the world is a fantasy place of magic, dreams where my boyfriend implicitly insults me, dreams that make no sense once I wake up, especially since they are little tendrils that rapidly fly out of my hands. I think it is perhaps why I keep waking up so tired -- I wake up at my 10AM alarm, but do not have the energy to leave the warmth and weight of my bed. Having the binary blanket on top of me at night adds so much comfort, and for reasons that hard to explain -- it helps trap the warmth, but also feels heavy on me, which for some reason makes my bed that much better for me.

And now that I'm back in Ithaca, I'm already getting the need to do WORK -- but I can't work on my research project yet, and the dining hall doesn't open until Sunday, and so instead I just kind of fret around with too much anxious energy and no where to really throw it. PMDD isn't helping. It just makes me antsy AND cranky.

So I'm basically struggling to let my brain understand that yes, we can still play video games, because there is nothing to worry about; and also find things to do with my day. Because location matters to my OCD.

I called a new psychiatrist and left a voicemail that forgot to state my name. Pretty typical Brittany, there.

Also on Saturday my boyfriend is going to India for two weeks and I am going to miss him so much :( Especially since within, like, a few days, my brain will decide he's dead somewhere. Go go, brain.

So yes. Writing may be a bit delayed as I try to get my brain to understand that it's okay, really.

But here:



Little vampire doodle of a certain vampire you all know and love. I have to change the anatomy up a bit, she looks more like a dog/pony than a lemur, but yes. Random doodles! Reference.

Tschuess.