#hhsh

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Behind-the-Scenes for Haunted House Sweet Home

It’s been almost three years to the day since I finished Haunted House Sweet Home. It’s by far the most popular piece of writing I’ve ever posted online, with (at time of writing) 33,647 hits, 1299 kudos, and a total of 1051 comments from 488 comment threads. Writing it was truly an amazing journey, and I keep a hardback cover of it bound and displayed proudly on my bookshelf, as a testament to the effort I put into all 185,000 words. It’s not a perfect story by any means, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But how did I write it, you may be wondering? It was no easy task, and to be honest, I was making up a lot of it as I went along. Before HHSH, I had only completed one long-form fan fiction before (some of you might remember Cut Off?) and I was in the middle of getting my degree. I had never tried outlining a long story before, but when the plot starting picking up and I found myself completely lost, I knew I had to write out all my thoughts somewhere, preferably in order. Lo, my first full-story outline was born. Once I had my ideas organized, I even started to create chapter-by-chapter outlines that went more into detail about what I wanted. A lot of my initial ideas are pretty different from the final product. How different? I’ll show you! Today we’ll be taking a never-before-seen dive in to an InkFlavored classic!

[Keep reading on Ko-Fi!]

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polycule asks!! 34, 58, for HHSH, and I cannot remember specifically if/who there is in TGDW so free reign for: 23, 14, 58 !

thank you!! <333

For context, The Aviary is the endgame polycule of my fanfiction Haunted House Sweet Home. It's a canon/canon/OC ship, and you can learn more about it from the fic itself or by browsing the story tag. The polycule (if canon) from The God-Dragon’s Wife is Xinya and Yu-Qi being married, and Jao being (unofficially) a consort to the queen. Xinya and Jao would be girlfriends pretty much, and Jao and Yu-Qi would be metamours that cross the line into FWB sometimes.

The Aviary

34. How have their members’ respective family relationships influenced their polyamorous dynamics?

Gonna be honest, I have not done my research on polyamory in the Ottoman Empire. I have no idea what the prevailing attitudes were, or what the general opinions of people at the time would be. Haven't done the research for modern Japan either.

Personally, though, Feriha has been 1) already betrayed by her family 2) dead for so long that she doesn't care what they think. I think she'd actually be more inclined to do it if they disapproved.

Atem also wouldn't care, but because he couldn't possibly choose between either of them. It wouldn't be fair to them or himself, and he's more than willing to ride out cultural disapproval for what makes him and his partners happy.

It's present in the story that Yugi is hesitant to even say how he feels when he finds out Atem is/was married, but we all saw how that turned out. I think the concept of not being a homewrecker definitely held him back, but ultimately he can't put aside love for cultural expectation either. He's the poster child of Do It Scared.

58. How does the polycule celebrate anniversaries?

All three of them are very concerned everyone gets to spend time one-on-one, so every "single" anniversary (Yugi/Atem anniversary, Feriha/Atem anniversary, and Yugi/Feriha anniversary) are assumed to be celebrated completely separate unless they make plans otherwise. It's usually an entire afterlife "day" spent together, doing cute date activities, if present Atem may or may not force the other sit for a portrait, and sex.

When they celebrate their collective anniversary, it's pretty much the same thing but it's all three of them instead of one-on-one, but usually spread out over more than one "day." Sometimes they'll all agree to throw a big party for it and invite their afterlife friends and family, but most of the time it's just the three of them.

Fun fact, since time doesn't really exist in the afterlife, they just agree to celebrate their anniversaries whenever they feel like it!

TGDW Polycule

I answered 23 here & 58 here!

14. What’s the craziest polycule drama they’ve experienced so far?

I think dating Jao dating her own queen while said queen is married to a literal dragon she's worshiped her entire life is some pretty intense poly drama. And not only is she dating her own queen now, while also being her personal assistant, that dragon wife is regularly checking her out now. She wasn't prepared for this, please send help.

[try out my OC Polycule Ask Game]

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soft asks! 🥀🌾 im so torn between saying pride and justice (and) or feriha just cause i love hearing about her too hehe

thank you!! i will help your dilemma and do one of each! :3

🥀 How would your OC decorate a notebook or journal? What kind of things are written in there? Could you give an example of a nice entry?

I'll do Feriha for this one. I think she'd decorate it with physical things, like dried flowers or scraps of paper as keepsakes, bird feathers, etc. etc. She'd use it like a daily journal, cataloguing her day and the things that happened very matter-of-factly.

🌾 Describe your OC through the eyes of someone absolutely head-over-heels in love with them

This one is for the P&J fellas. Because they are in love <3 And I kinda wanna write this in their voices so here we go--

Pride, about Justice:

Oh, where do I fucking START? For a dude who flipped Heaven the bird, you'd think he'd have less of a stick up his ass. Can't go two minutes without getting a lecture about "manners" or "common sense" or "basic public decency." Yawn. Over it.

Like, I'm just saying. He's NOT in Heaven anymore, right? But he's still so fuckin' nervous about being a perfect little angel, can't go two steps without dropping everything to fix some random person's issues. Helping people is fine, whatever, but it's like he never gives himself a break. I want to shake him sometimes, you know? Lay off the personal responsibility for five minutes, you don't have Gabriel checking your quarterly reports this week, or whatever the fuck.

I don't know. Maybe him being nice to literally everyone isn't so bad. He's nice to me, even though he probably shouldn't be. It saved my life, so I guess I should thank him for it. He's also a huge nerd, which is hilarious. I can't believe he got fake glasses for fun, what a dork.

Justice... makes me feel like I suck. But in a good way? I want to... suck less, so I'm worth it for him. That's probably dumb. But I don't know what else to say. He makes me feel like it's possible for me to not suck one day.

Justice, about Pride:

Pride is... a handful. He's very loud, he can be inconsiderate, he can't ever admit he was wrong, and no matter how many times I tell him not to smoke in the house, he seemingly can't help himself from wearing his horns to bed and making everything in his room stink. Sometimes I wonder if he even listens to me.

He's been through so much pain, though. I try to remember that. No matter how annoyingly stubborn or impossible to talk to he can be, it's all because he thought for centuries he would always be alone. I can feel it all the time, this... constant guilt and rage in him. I can't hate him, I can't even try. It takes a lot of patience to understand him, but I don't regret a single second of it.

Because he's also fiercely protective of people he loves. He's passionate, he's encouraging, he does whatever he likes without thinking about what other people might tell him. All his choices are his own, for better or worse, and I admire him for that. He's slow to trust, but once he feels like he won't be hurt by you, Pride is a beautiful person. Someone worth abandoning Heaven for.

[send me a soft OC ask]

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How the Caged Bird Sings

fandom:  Yu-Gi-Oh!  

rating: T

relationship: Atem/OC

tags:  Alternate Universe - Historical Setting (Egypt under the Ottoman Empire), arranged marriage, disgruntled and angsty to lovers, bonding through chess, conversations, i’d say pre-relationship but they’re already married so...

warnings: slavery/sex slavery mention (both within the context of the Ottoman Empire's eunuchs and the Sultan's harem)

status: completed; one-shot

series: AU-gust 2022

summary:

AU-gust Day 17: Arranged Marriage

The months wore on and Feriha saw very little of her supposed husband.

[read it on ao3]

[read it on ko-fi]

[AU-gust 2022 Masterlist]

read ahead on Ko-Fi for just $4 a month!

Author’s Note

This is a cute little spin-off of Haunted House Sweet Home, one of my longfics! If you’re wondering about the overall context, you can read the whole fic, and if you’re curious about the conversation these two had on their wedding night, you can join my (free!) discord server to read a little vignette I wrote separately just for them <3

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oh man so many OC i could ask but I feel compelled to ask these of Feriha because... reasons huehue 🍟🍁✏️📎❤️

hehuheuehuhueeuh

For the uninitiated, Feriha is one of the three points of the endgame triangle in Haunted House Sweet Home.

🍟 FRIES - do they order food often? or they prefer to cook their own food?

If by "ordering food" you mean "servants brought her food for basically her entire life" yeah she orders food pretty often. In the afterlife, it's much easier to "make your own" food by imagining it, but she cannot cook from scratch. Nor can Atem for that matter. They leave that up to Yugi.

🍁 MAPLE LEAF - what is their favourite season? why?

Her favorite season is spring, because it's when the birds come back.

✏️ PENCIL - is there a particular quote / lyric that you associate with them?

Skylark by Aretha Franklin:

Have you anything to say to me? Won't you tell me where my love can be?

📎 PAPERCLIP - a random fact.

Her favorite color is orange.

❤️ RED HEART - their love language(s)?

Quality time! Spending any amount of time with the people she loves is meaningful especially after... [gestures vaguely to the entire story]

[pick an OC and send me an ask about them!]

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well goddamn, folks!

Haunted House Sweet Home is over 1000 kudos now!

i.......i honestly don’t even know what else to say except, thank you??? so much??  this is insane, i feel like i should do something but i dont know WHAT,

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okay this is the exact definition of last minute, but the 1 year anniversary of Haunted House Sweet Home is this Friday, July 2nd. if i did a little Q&A to celebrate, would people be interested in that?

still debating if it should be exclusively on tumblr, or if i should include twitter people, or if i should just go all out and make a temporary discord server to host it -- i literally just had this idea today, so it could be anything!

so, anybody?

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👤 u know the lady i wanna hear about

haha yeah u know it

For those not on the up-and-up, I'll be talking about Feriha from Haunted House Sweet Home!

👤 What is your OC’s skin like? Is it unblemished, or are they prone to breakouts? Do they have any scars, tattoos, or other skin markings? Does their skin tend to be sensitive to things that get on it (lotions, cleaning products, etc.)?

Well she definitely has freckles, but you knew that already! Aside from the obvious, Feriha grew up first as a sheltered noblewoman and then was bought by the sultan to become a part of the harem. She was in better health than most women at the time (a lot of poor families sold their daughters into sex slavery on purpose, in order to give them a chance at a better, lavish life in the harem), so she didn't have much room to develop any callouses, scars, or anything like that.

She does have a prominent birthmark behind her left ear, shape a little bit like a leaf. There are a couple others, faded, in less fun shapes, and in less obvious spots (right foot, diaphragm).

Due to being from the 1800s, I imagine that harsher, modern cleaning chemicals and skin products would bother her quite a lot in theory. Both because even the healthiest person from her time did not have access to the same quality of health we have today and because they are so horrible and bad to her delicate skin. Luckily, she will never have to experience this particular discomfort, because there is no pain in the afterlife!

[send me an OC ask! you can find them on my Original WIPs tags page or pick one from my fics!]