I am feasting on the wipsnips. Please write forever omg. My favorite author. I kiss your hands
🌹 please spare a crumb for me?
HELLO STIGGY MY LOVE of course I can spare a crumb for you always <33
Have a snip from the Dirges AU where everything is the same except the Zitters didn't die :3c
"Tango," Tango said, offering up no last name. His grip lingered for a moment longer than the introduction required, and Jimmy felt his tongue grow clumsy, unsure how to continue the conversation without making a fool of himself. "You know," Tango said, saving him from having to do so. His index finger tapped Jimmy's wrist absently, and Jimmy wondered if the man had forgotten he had a grip on Jimmy's hand, or if he was making Jimmy's heart do somersaults entirely on purpose. "I believe I've met another Ratcliffe, tonight. Two, in fact."
From this ask game: for every “🌹” received in my inbox I’ll post one random sentence of a WIP I’m currently writing
Ty anon! From this ask game! (for every “🌹” received in my inbox i’ll post one sentence of a random WIP I’m currently writing)
Have a bit from What Forever Means (the dirges sequel) :3
Twenty years, seven months, fourteen days, three hours, and ten minutes before the bell above his door chimed on a dreary day in August, Oliver Sound woke from a dead sleep with a vision of his future.
I have many wips my dear sweet gamers, so feel free to keep sending these :]
just here to say im rereading dirges for like the 5th time (literally peak in all senses, i especially love how much research went into making it historically accurate) and i just LOVE the tailoring scene of scott intentionally trying to make tango jealous
the switch up between "youre clear as glass" to "ive changed my mind, you've been clear as mud" is just too good
although on the reread i swear i remember getting tango's POV of that too but i cant find it in the fic for the life of me and im starting to think i dreamt it up LOL
anyways all thats to say i love your writing and how much detail youre able to fit into every character interaction no matter how small, its incredible!!
AHHHH hi!! ty 💖 highkey the research has consumed my life, I know SO much about the old west now that it leaks into irl conversations XD I am so glad other people enjoy that aspect of it as much as I enjoyed doing it!!!
AHH Oh I'm SO glad you said that!! it's one of the lines that made me giggle when I put it on the page and then every edit after!!
and GOSH that was a scene that I had a vision of WAY back at the very start. I love a good sprinkling of a jealousy scene, and in my mind the only person who would do something like that in Dirges was Scott.
Hilariously I think the very very first draft of that scene (the one in my head, not on paper RIP) was from Tango's POV! I know that there's a callback to it in a later chapter, when Tango's thinking about Scott giving him that nudge when he goes back into the shop, and Stiggy knows that I have their dialogue loosely written out in a comment in the All Chapter doc so I knew what happened once Jimmy was left standing in the street (LOL)
Actually...
Boom, straight from the All Chapter doc
Now, if I'd written it from Tango's POV that dialogue might have been subject to change, but I wanted to at least have a little idea of what was happening in there while Jimmy was left alone XD
The callback is this line here:
but alas it sounds like the Tango POV of the tailor shop scene exists only in our minds XD I'd love to hear how you envisioned it!
Thank you for sending this! :D and thank you for reading (five times!!and if I cry over that everyone pretend not to notice 😭) the character interactions are highkey my favorite bits to write so!! ahh thank you <3333
did you get the title for dirges from the song american pie? bc when i tell you i got whiplash today at work because i heard that lyric over the radio ToT. i physically stopped what i was doing for a second because i was like wait. hang on.
Haha yes I did!! In hindsight, I should probably have put that in the authors notes XD
Storytime! Right after I got laid off, and when I was about halfway through the first draft (long after I've normally picked a title for a wip and was lowkey panicking about it) I had gotten a bit sick of my Dirges Playlist CD, but hadn't made up a new one for it yet. So instead, I put in a CD I'd made for a different WIP (TLRH gang (cough Mo cough) I prommy she's still coming I just burned myself out on her HARDCORE) and most of the music on that is from the 70s and early 80s! Anyway, American Pie comes on while I'm driving to the coffee shop and the lyric
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died
Just absolutely smacked me in the face. That line became the title and it actually crashed right through a wall of writers block and let me finish,, chapter 6? I think?
Music is (kinda not-so-secretly) a huge background motif in Dirges and the upcoming side-stories, so the title ended up being a little nod to that! It shows up in WFM, G&L, and the Unnamed Mumbo WIP most strongly, though.
So yeah!! :3 Excellent spot Mars, that's exactly where it came from! :D
Have an excerpt from the first chapter of the Dirges Sequel!
Jimmy wanted to swear, too. He wanted to shove John Bender off the road and order him to draw. Wanted to put a slug in him for everyone who had died—Durango citizen or otherwise—thanks to his callousness and the target he’d put on the town.
Instead, he drew back and raised an eyebrow.
“I wouldn’t,” he said, his voice as cool as he could manage when it wanted to come out red-hot. The words were clipped, as prim and proper as Grian had taught him to be in an argument outside of the family.
“Wouldn’t what?” Bender said, his hand still wavering in the air between them.
“Thank me.” Jimmy said simply, “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for Flint, and for Bill, and for every man and woman who got caught in the crossfire that night.”
Bender dropped his hand, his brows coming down low over his empty eyes.
“And frankly, Mr. Bender,” Jimmy said, the words getting away from him, “I think it would be best for everyone involved if you cleared out of Durango. You’ve got more than enough time to take your business with the Goldstone gang elsewhere.”
The words hung in the air for a moment before Jimmy realized what he had done. He didn’t let the sudden self-recrimination show on his face, but internally he swore at himself. It was more likely than not that the people of Durango would be the ones to suffer for Jimmy’s words, if Bender took offense.
A cold smile replaced the affability from a moment before, and Bender spat again, this time closer. Jimmy didn’t dare flinch as the projectile landed somewhere between his feet. As close to a threat as the man could get without drawing his weapon.
“That tin star’s giving you airs, Englishman.” Bender said, his voice low, dangerous.
The man who had spoken earlier—Jimmy figured he had to be Bender’s second-in-command—shifted his stance. His hands didn’t go to his holster, but one landed on his belt, while the other came up to scratch at his ragged beard thoughtfully.
“Y’know, John, I hear they plate ‘em in silver up north, on account of they’re swimming in the stuff.”
Jimmy realized, a beat too late, that they knew a lot more about him than he was entirely comfortable with. The words ex-lawman and up north echoed cavernously in his head.
“That so?” Bender said, sounding for all the world like he was pretending to be surprised. “Well, in that case, maybe we ought to pay your old haunt a visit. See what about it makes you think you’re so high and mighty.”
Perhaps it was the exhaustion, perhaps it was the image that popped into his head of John Bender trying to threaten Grian or Scar, but in a moment, the bubble of fear in him burst, and all that was left was laughter.
He walked up to John Bender, hearing men fumbling for their holsters behind him, and clapped the man on the shoulder.
He slid a grin towards the outlaw, half threat, half promise, and spoke with all the amusement he could muster, “I’d like to see you try.”
When Jimmy woke up to the sound of gunfire across the plains, he was convinced that Grian's past had finally caught up to them. He never could have imagined that the day would end with the eyes of the town looking to him for guidance, including that of the town's newest resident, a red-eyed horse-thief with a secret that had sent the previous sheriff on a wild goose chase halfway across the continent.
Pairing(s): solidaritek; scarian; (background) ethubs and treebark; past solidarityn
i told one of my friends about dirges and they started reading it!! they're not really in the fandom but i think i'm getting them into it. they're on chapter 6 right now, and they've been taking notes on their thoughts as they read and showing them to me and it's so funny. it makes me really happy so i thought you'd like to know too!!!
OMG??? I can't even get MY non-fandom friends to read Dirges /silly
but fr I am honored!!! Like TAKING NOTES?? I am smiling so much that my face is starting to hurt XD
thank you for telling me this, this ask has made my day I am so happy right now!!! <3333
Tell your friend that I hope that they keep enjoying Dirges and that if they ever feel inclined, I'd love to hear their thoughts!! (no pressure, obviously, but I am DELIGHTED and they deserve to know that their enthusiasm is MAJORLY appreciated either way!)
And Thank YOU for reading and reccing Dirges as well!! :D
