Blue J.

Writer. Adventurer. 30. They/he. Probably frolicking in the woods at this very moment. I follow from @peppermintlark ! Writing blog now over at @peplark-writes !

[bluejaybabbles-archive]

Hello everyone! It's gotten a little cluttered here at bluejaybabbles, and the url doesn't quite fit anymore, so I've remade! My new writeblr is over at @peppermintlark !

I don't plan on deleting this blog for the time being; I'm gonna leave it up as an archive for myself, at least for a little while, but there won't be anything new here. I will be queuing this post once a day for the next week and pinning it to make sure everyone knows I've moved! Thanks, y'all!

[bluejaybabbles-archive]

Hello everyone! It's gotten a little cluttered here at bluejaybabbles, and the url doesn't quite fit anymore, so I've remade! My new writeblr is over at @peppermintlark !

I don't plan on deleting this blog for the time being; I'm gonna leave it up as an archive for myself, at least for a little while, but there won't be anything new here. I will be queuing this post once a day for the next week and pinning it to make sure everyone knows I've moved! Thanks, y'all!

[bluejaybabbles-archive]

Hello everyone! It's gotten a little cluttered here at bluejaybabbles, and the url doesn't quite fit anymore, so I've remade! My new writeblr is over at @peppermintlark !

I don't plan on deleting this blog for the time being; I'm gonna leave it up as an archive for myself, at least for a little while, but there won't be anything new here. I will be queuing this post once a day for the next week and pinning it to make sure everyone knows I've moved! Thanks, y'all!

[bluejaybabbles-archive]

Hello everyone! It's gotten a little cluttered here at bluejaybabbles, and the url doesn't quite fit anymore, so I've remade! My new writeblr is over at @peppermintlark !

I don't plan on deleting this blog for the time being; I'm gonna leave it up as an archive for myself, at least for a little while, but there won't be anything new here. I will be queuing this post once a day for the next week and pinning it to make sure everyone knows I've moved! Thanks, y'all!

[bluejaybabbles-archive]

Hello everyone! It's gotten a little cluttered here at bluejaybabbles, and the url doesn't quite fit anymore, so I've remade! My new writeblr is over at @peppermintlark !

I don't plan on deleting this blog for the time being; I'm gonna leave it up as an archive for myself, at least for a little while, but there won't be anything new here. I will be queuing this post once a day for the next week and pinning it to make sure everyone knows I've moved! Thanks, y'all!

[bluejaybabbles-archive]

Hello everyone! It's gotten a little cluttered here at bluejaybabbles, and the url doesn't quite fit anymore, so I've remade! My new writeblr is over at @peppermintlark !

I don't plan on deleting this blog for the time being; I'm gonna leave it up as an archive for myself, at least for a little while, but there won't be anything new here. I will be queuing this post once a day for the next week and pinning it to make sure everyone knows I've moved! Thanks, y'all!

[bluejaybabbles-archive]

Hello everyone! It's gotten a little cluttered here at bluejaybabbles, and the url doesn't quite fit anymore, so I've remade! My new writeblr is over at @peppermintlark !

I don't plan on deleting this blog for the time being; I'm gonna leave it up as an archive for myself, at least for a little while, but there won't be anything new here. I will be queuing this post once a day for the next week and pinning it to make sure everyone knows I've moved! Thanks, y'all!

[bluejaybabbles-archive]

Hello everyone! It's gotten a little cluttered here at bluejaybabbles, and the url doesn't quite fit anymore, so I've remade! My new writeblr is over at @peppermintlark !

I don't plan on deleting this blog for the time being; I'm gonna leave it up as an archive for myself, at least for a little while, but there won't be anything new here. I will be queuing this post once a day for the next week and pinning it to make sure everyone knows I've moved! Thanks, y'all!

[peplark-writes]

[image description: a person partially submerged in green water. The person is pale skinned with green eyes and long, wavy, black hair. They are wearing a mint green nightgown with white lace trim. In the upper right corner, there is a translucent green rectangle, over which black text reads, “peppermintlark writeblr re-introduction. In the bottom right corner is the artist’s signature, which reads “PepLark May 2021.” end image description]

Hello there, everyone! My name is Rook, but you can also call me Lark, if you’d like! I’m a latine writer and artist who uses they/them or he/him pronouns. I’ve been creating things for as long as I can remember, and hopefully I’ll be able to share more of the things I create here with all of you! My previous writeblr was @bluejaybabbles and it got a little cluttered over there, so I’m remaking to get a fresh start.

I mainly write fantasy novels with LGBTQIA+ themes! I’m a big fan of the found family trope, so you’ll see a a lot of that in my work, along with polyamory,  strange magic, and fair folk. 

Currently, I have four WIPs bouncing around in my head, all in planning stages. You can find my WIP page any time here, but they are as follows: 

Iron-Bred, Violet-Born

Previously known as When the Waves Kiss the Trees, or WTWKTT! 

Iron-Bred, Violet-Born was its original title, but that didn’t fit one of the drafts I had been working on. Surprise! It fits again!

Short description:  A newly-discovered changeling and a human prince come together to find a city the gods abandoned. This city, which may or may not exist, could be the only hope for the survival of their world.

Like Thunder Below

Sometimes you hyperfixate on The Witcher but you’re also thinking about life in Ohio and also also you’re thinking about cicada brood x and this comes about, y’know?

Short description:  A monster hunter who prefers to use a catch-and-release method joins up with the local witch to help someone who seems to attract monsters and strange phenomena, all while navigating life in Hedgerow, Ohio.

An Anchor in the Overgrowth

Some of you may know this as Juniper’s story! It finally has a title! I came up with it while trying to come up with a title for the Manor in the Hills WIP! Woe is me! 

This one is the result of me thinking about media that shows how bright and beautiful a world can be far past an apocalypse, and also me wanting to deal with some very specific trauma, so there you go

Short description:  Deep in the forest no one returns from, there’s an inn that serves as a waypoint on the path through the trees. Juniper, the current innkeeper, does her best to help those that come to the inn, all while struggling with her own trauma.

(untitled) Manor in the Hills WIP

This one’s fairly new! 

Short description:  Trapped in a manor they were supposedly sent to deem safe, a prince, an apothecary in training, and two loyal knights must face the possibility that they are not alone.

And there you have it! Feel free to send me asks or dm me any time! I’ll be hanging around, and hopefully I’ll be making more thorough introductions of my WIPs sometime in the future. Thanks for reading! 

[goose-books]

and when i post my wip intro for pantheonwip which is just “what if my ocs based off of aeneas theaeneid and brutus juliuscaesar were mortal enemies… and they were both girls.” what then

[yvesdot]

[goose-books]

happy pride month to benji russells and vivian hart ONLY

[bluejaybabbles-archive]

@vivji I WAS GONNA MAKE THIS EARLIER BUT I FORGOT....Here is your PHD

[headspace-hotel]

thinking about werewolves and the concept of becoming a monster and discovering that something savage and uncontrollable exists within you and the potential that has to be a liberating narrative about growth and change and courage rather than a story about controlling and concealing it

[headspace-hotel]

Being a werewolf is about shame. I think it’s also about anger, trauma, not belonging, and the fear that you might be unlovable.

The shame of being a werewolf has to be that you were bitten by the wolf, and you survived. You survived because you became the wolf yourself. You are this terrible, monstrous thing, and the terrible, monstrous thing is you. It’s the part of you that survives the attack, and it’s terrifying that this is you.

I feel like werewolves are people who are very hurt. Not only that, they’ve spent their lives up to this point trying as hard as they can being whatever the opposite of a werewolf is—something tame, something yielding, something that’s not angry and unpredictable and bestial. But the Wolf is also them. Because no matter how much you don’t believe it, you want to make it. You want to survive, and you will fight so that you will live.

Or werewolves are people who are incredibly afraid. It’s about the inevitability of not being lovable; being a monster is unforgivable. It’s about the inability to withstand anything that will happen to you. It’s about your body betraying you. It’s about carrying a terrible and ugly you inside you, locked up where no one can see it, because the thought of anyone else seeing that you is unbearable. It’s about all of those things and more.

I think the Wolf is the part of you that loves you, unconditionally. It’s the part of you that bites when something tries to hurt you. When something tries to put you back in the place you’re supposed to be. Of course it’s scary. It’s scary to find that you are impossibly strong and maybe selfish, and that your self-hatred isn’t enough to save you from the savage, stubborn knot of self-love you carry in your chest. But it’s also the answer to that question: What if I am awful? What if I am terrible, too terrible to look at, too terrible to love? What if you are a monster? Well, what then?

[werewolfsbutch-deactivated20230]

A SPARROW’S GHOST ; A collection of excerpts from act 1 and act [redacted]. tws: violence, blood

“What’re you doin’?”

Spencer didn’t answer. Just sat there, hands over his ears that were already sort of covered by the fluff-laced collar of his jacket. Dark eyes bold on his leaf-shadowed face as the fire crackled licking reds and oranges in their odd watery reflection, also followed by his eyes was the furious embers snapping out of the little pit, quick to diffuse on the damp dirt next to his shoes. Another gunshot rapped out on the stale air. Distant, still. Her lack of concern for any human diminished greatly on the climb up this broken peak. She couldn’t have made it in a flight and straying at night almost always ended in one around here. If only he’d get the memo they were safe, huddled all up like a pup bedded down in the middle of its first hunt gone sour.

Quentin picked up one of those smaller branches, stuck it at the lips of the fire, and let it carry its own before tossing it at his shoes.

Another gunshot. He flinched back when the alight stick scuffed past the shoe’s strings. Halfway knocked off the dead tree with a squeaking yelp. “Quentin,” he snapped in a way that hardly felt offensive. “Not cool. What’s wrong with you? What if I caught on fire?”

“Yes, ‘m sure that lil’ stick is gonna catch all five foot two of you on fire,” Quentin said, reaching around for her backpack to unhook her bag—he hadn’t grown much, really, just enough to make his bag obsolete. Just her fucking luck when she couldn’t find a better fitting one for herself than the one she was tossing at him. But the damn kid wouldn’t sleep atop his own. “If you listened for a second, you would know I said to lay down. The sun rises sooner this time a year and we don’t need to lose daylight ‘cause of sleepin’.”

A bit startled looking, he adjusted his grip on the bag, flinching at a hurried duo of gunshots. A little closer. Louder. “Oh,” he whispered. “I can’t.”

“What?”

“I can’t,” he admitted, a little quieter, eyes drawn from hers to the bag, fingers carefully drifting over the Qs she marked up bits of it with the one morning he didn’t wake up before her. “It’s the—” A gunshot rang. “—the noise, it’s too—” Another that sent him cringing, the bag fell as his hands shot to his ears. “I can’t handle it. I can’t tell when it’ll come so I can’t prepare and it makes my thoughts too loud every time, I can’t think. I can’t sleep. I’ll watch tonight, instead, ‘kay?”

With his closed eyes and covered ears, the moment of Quentin staring at him was a wholly private one. A sharp, toothy expression quickly drained by a quietly overwhelming thought when the next gunshot ruptured a long breath of silence, Spencer little less than fell in on himself. She didn’t get it, really, having grown up watching Lionel practice his aim on the straying dead in camp, the noise didn’t bother her; but the tangled thoughts did, unable to breathe when she couldn’t focus on anything yet everything was mussed up around in her skull.

Phoebe told her it’d help to shake—her hands, legs, body, and it worked until she learned shame and abstinence. She found herself doing it more now, though. Maybe because it was only the birds and Spencer around to see her hands flap like she’d break them. Maybe because she already knew it was weird — she was always weird to Lionel — for a kid to not like touch. Maybe she wouldn’t have to have figured this out at all if she wasn’t too selfish to share the shame she knew. She was always good at being selfish.

Another gunshot. Quentin reached for her backpack again, found them quickly—the portable CD player and it’s thick-cushioned headphones adorned in white cuts. It felt wrong to share what was always hers, made her feel foolish when she had nothing at all. Lionel would laugh. Too soft around the edges. Like the rabbits bred to be killed. “Try these out,” she somewhat shouted, offering them before settling on standing to plop both items in his lap. “It’s no Bigwig of yours but Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton ain’t ever let me down, so.”

“It’s Ludwig,” he replied after the chance to uncoil himself, gather the bag and examine the player and headphones. He looked up at, fire crackling a soft yellow glow on wide, tired eyes. “Are you sure? You got mad when I touched them last time.”

“I didn’t let you last time,” she said, trying too hard not to remember lest she feel regret. “Just. Try ‘em out. Maybe they’ll make it easier to sleep or somethin’ without the racket out here.”

“Oh,” Spencer muttered, looking back at the player, as if realizing something. “Thank you.”

“Do you remember Old Yeller?” he said, the gun clicked, she swore she felt it. Heard him breathe a sickly sort of elated laugh “You used to hate it when I’d put it on for you.”

Quentin knew now that Spencer would be waiting—knew that she sent him off and he only listened because she promised him she’d find him. She wasn’t going back on it, if the only good thing she did was find him again, she’d be content. He deserved all she had left to give, she only wished she had a little more. “I used to hate the ending,” she corrected. “It didn’t make sense.”

“What didn’t?”

“Old Yeller just barkin’,” And that was when she lunged, so little space between them to clear before she heard a shot, felt a burn, knew it was lowlowlow so she still had her head and that had to be enough when he slammed the butt of a gun against something that gushed at her stomach, for in the next beat. They crashed into the wall. His head made a meaty thwock on the stone pillar, right onto rounded pyramids now smeared by a bit of blood.

The gun fell. He did, too. Her grip on his shirt meant so did she.

But she still had her head. Only something lowlowlow was seeping on her, instead, his was oozing, but the distorted vision made the scrabbling for a dual blur of a gun a feat. Then he tried to regain sense. She found the gun first. Staggered upright, tried to aim only to fall back on her ass. Far enough away. Far enough.

“Bitch,” he wheezed.

“See, it never made sense to me,” she told him, voice ruled by the body wide tremors swelling by the second. “A rabid dog wouldn’t let you kill it. It wouldn’t just bark. It’d try to bring you the fuck down with it. It’d make you pull the trigger.”

“What the hell are you doing? You wouldn’t kill me, would you? After everything I tried to do for you? After all those chances?”

“You shouldn’t have touched my boy.”

“I tried to follow you, I did but the dogs were there! You said the dogs are so smart, I didn’t want them to find me or else I couldn’t get you away from those guys but the dogs never left so I waited and waited and I was waiting! I swear,” he sobbed into her, arms squeezing tight around a torso too sore for Antigone to even clean without something to take the edge off. But he was shaking and going on and trying to cling to her like it was vital to the continuation of the hiccuping breaths muffled by her sweatshirt. “I’d never leave you. I didn’t leave you! I didn’t know what to—”

Quentin pulled him close, just as tight and enveloping, until she felt rather than heard his breathing calm and the little cabin went semi-silent. “It’s okay,” she told him. His own absence scared him, the inability to be there, harping on it more than she’d ever even consider, but in that, too, was the fear she could break now, his shock and freezing at her inability to even stand that night to evident in the way his fingers dug in, “I’m here, you know? It’s okay. We’re okay.”

[werewolfsbutch-deactivated20230]

hey who wants me to absolutely obliterate them emotionally….

[werewolfsbutch-deactivated20230]

if this obliterates no one else i don’t care, i hate it with all my heart.

transcript:

“The wedding’s gonna be in spring,” Vivian told her as the water lapped at her shoes, soaking through with a burn that smelled of salt and a morning too cold to be unforgiving to still the slightest tremble of her hand fingers around the phone. “Your official invite should be comin’ soon but I couldn’t not tell you.”

“Right, that,” Benji shook her head, curls damp in mist that clung too well to her cheeks as they rolled like stray raindrops—perhaps it should’ve been raining, maybe she would have appreciated it for the turning of the page in Vivian’s life that she knew couldn’t involve her; wondered if the other remembered their plans enough to reuse them. Might’ve felt special if she knew. “I think I saw the photos you were using for them… You looked lovely, as always,” she said as the ocean rumbled with another lap that touched the ends of her slacks. “I can’t for it to happen for you.”

[bluejaybabbles-archive]

[ausloeserin]

a carpet of leaves and thousands of stars

(© ausloeserin)

[ajoblotofjunk]

Okay writers, which are more difficult:

Titles

Last lines