These are all the parts to every continued One Shot for Solangelo in case you’ve had trouble finding them. Yes I will continue them, and yes I will take more one shot requests. (Any mythical stuff? Vampire Nico? Angel Nico? Demon Will? Hey, I do fantasy too!)
Just please be patient as I try to keep up with requests. If you feel I have forgotten yours, resend it I don’t mind.
Oh yeah, I finally made a title. I’m sorry I haven’t had drawings to go with this :(
PART 6
He was an idiot. That was all there was to it. This man had captured him, for crying out loud. Where had the sudden affection come from? It hadn’t even been a day. And still, he could not deny the churning in his stomach when he saw Nico kissing the first mate so desperately.
Unable to sleep, he stared at the stars in the sky. The smell of the ocean and the dim light relaxed him, and he was grateful that Nico had allowed him to sleep here. Suddenly, he heard light footsteps. He half expected Lou Ellen upon hearing such a feathery gait. But instead, he saw the outline of the captain. His chest tightened and he sat up.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said gently. He stepped closer and sat in front of him.
“What do you want?” Will demanded.
“Please don’t be angry with me.” He reached for his hand, but Will pulled away. Suddenly, Nico was pulling him forward onto his knees, angrily grasping his shirt. “How can you tell me there’s nothing when you’re so angry with me for what I’ve done?”
“I’m angry because of the lies,” Will said through clenched teeth, trying to pull Nico’s hands away. “You try to kiss me, but you lay with him and kiss him-”
“I wanted it to be you,” Nico insisted, still shaking him by his shirt. “When I kissed him, I thought of you. And I don’t understand why. I’ve never felt this before. It’s no simple fancy. I don’t know what I feel, but it scares me. Whatever this is, whatever causes me to want you so terribly, it horrifies me. It makes me weak.” Will’s cheeks were flushed as he looked into the captain’s eyes. He looked so distressed and pained, it made him feel guilty. “If you could explain it, make it go away then I’ll leave you be.”
The way he handled him was so desperate, so angry and afraid, that Will didn’t know what to do. How had he broken through his walls so easily? All he’d done was be stubborn. Yet here was the captain, on his knees, begging for an explanation from him. “You should go to bed,” Will answered. “You’re tired. You’ve fought twice today.” He attempted again to loosen the vice grip.
“Will,” he pleaded. “I want to know what it’s like.” Will furrowed his eyebrows. “What is it like to kiss someone you truly feel something for?” His lips parted in surprise and he stared back at the captain with wide eyes. Before he could think of something to say, Nico leaned forward and pulled him into the most feral, desperate kiss Will had ever experienced. His weight made Will lean back and he was too dizzy to think of pushing him away.
His lips responded, feeling the warmth of Nico’s mouth on his, the texture of his tongue, the feeling of teeth biting gently on his lips. Nico’s cold hands slid to his neck, pulling him closer, and Will allowed his to go into his hair, knocking down his hat. Nico’s legs were on either side of him, and when he pulled away, they were both panting. His eyes were lidded as he looked at Will, one hand coming up to caress his cheek. “I’d never felt anything like that in my life,” he whispered.
Will stared back at him, completely lost in the eyes he could barely discern in the dark. “I should hate you,” he murmured. “I should want to leave, I should want to kill you.” Nico pressed into the hand that rested on his cold cheek. He placed his own over Will’s as though he were afraid Will would pull away. Instead, Will pulled him in, and pressed his lips against Nico’s in a much gentler manner. Surely he’d never experienced true affection. Deliberateness. Sincerity. Want. Almost immediately, Nico was tugging him desperately. “Sh,” Will shushed. “Wait.” Nico relaxed and Will proceeded to kiss him slowly, cherishing every little moment of it. The timidity of his lips and the ragged breaths he managed. Nico’s hands seemed to shake as he slid them over his shoulders. “You’re not used to gentleness, are you?”
“No,” he breathed. “It’s…. It’s wonderful.” Will smiled and he chuckled in response. “Where are you from?” he asked suddenly. “I can’t pinpoint your accent.”
“I’ve some Irish blood, but I’m mainly English.” Nico nodded, fingering the hem of the vest. “What about you?”
The two of them began talking into the night, comforted by the other’s warmth. Every now and then, Will would surprise him with a gentle kiss, and sometimes Nico would push for a passionate one. It wasn’t until the sky began to turn a dark blue and stars began to disappear that Nico groaned and said he had to return to his cabin. “You forgive me?” he asked, laying his head against Will’s chest.
“Yes,” Will answered. “But I beg you not to do it again. I do not want….”
“Neither do I. I’ve felt more in my moments with you tonight than I have in all the lust filled nights with him. I don’t wish to return to that.” He lifted his head and looked at him with those brooding dark eyes. “But he can’t know. God knows what he’ll do.” Will clenched his jaw and looked at the sky. He could begin to discern the shape of the clouds. “Don’t be upset, love,” he whispered. His fingers traced Will’s lower lip, causing him to shudder. “I won’t do anything that I don’t need to.” He shuffled away from him and stood. “I’ll see you in some hours. Get some rest.”
Will watched him walk away and sighed. How had he reached this point? Surprisingly, he fell asleep immediately after Nico left to his cabin.
He awoke when someone threw water in his face. Sputtering he looked around and saw the form of the first mate looming over him. “Get up,” he growled. “Everyone’s got a job to do, and you’re no exception, quisby.” Suddenly his green eyes focused on something to Will’s left. The scowl on his face deepened. Will risked glancing and felt a wave of terror overwhelm him at the sight of the captain’s hat. “Why is that here?” he asked angrily. When Will didn’t answer, Percy grabbed him roughly and yanked him up, the threat evident in the tone of his voice. “Why is that here?” he asked again.
There was some satisfaction in having spent the night with Nico beside him and having the first mate completely ignorant in front of him. This fool believed the captain loved him, when in reality it had been Will who managed to strike fear in his heart due to unknown emotions. Those lips had been his all night, that voice spoke so only he could hear, and all the while Percy had been asleep, believing the captain had eyes only for him.
“Answer me!” Percy shouted, shaking him.
“Perseus!” They turned their heads to the voice that came from the wooden steps. “Honestly, I tell you to wake him and bring him on deck, and instead I find him doused in water in your grasp?” the captain said as he walked leisurely toward them. His eyes fell on his hat, but there was no recognition in his eyes. “Ah, so that’s where it drifted off to.”
“What?” they both asked.
“I fell asleep in the crow’s nest last night. When I woke my hat was gone. I was much too tired and it was far too dark to look for it.” He bent down and grabbed it, setting it on his head. “Perseus,” he said slowly, as though he were talking to a child. “Let him go.” He did. “Go on, then. To the main deck.” Percy shoved Will ahead toward the steps, and it took all his restraint to keep from hitting him. “Ah, pirate, your name?” he asked.
Will turned, furrowing his eyebrows. “William.”
“William,” he mused, much like the first time he’d said it. “Stay for a moment. Percy, fetch the rum for our guests.” Will glanced at the first mate who seemed to have a permanent scowl on his face. He nodded and left the two alone. After a few moments, Nico looked up. Will did too, but all he saw was a clear blue sky.
Suddenly Nico’s lips were on his, his hands on either side of his face. “Good morning, my love,” he said softly.
“You’re a rather good liar,” Will said, slightly unnerved.
He must have noticed it, because he kissed him lightly and slid his thumb along his cheek gently. “Only when I have to be. I won’t lie to you,” he promised. “Now come. There is someone I would like for you to meet.”
-Still slower than I’d like with the Ungodly Mountain of Notes, although the scrollbar position seems to indicate that I’m maybe a 5th of the way through? Oh god.
-Buuuuut I had a dramatic revelation about where I wanted to take the Canterbury Tales whatever whatever frame story! It’s still not perfect—the last thing I need to figure out is how to keep the core of my fancy idea without it limiting the types of stories people can tell—but I am super excited!!! Also I still have some more decisions to make about the stories themselves, but I know at least one I should be able to start on pretty easily. And I can just keep skimming a list of Aarne-Thompson folktale types for even more plots/themes to steal. Holy shit you guys I think I might actually write a fanfic what is this witchcraft
-Might’ve accidentally started a few articles about specific elements of fakemon design, whoops. Stuff like choosing/creating types and abilities and moves. We’ll see?
-Also this week: The short and argument/failure-to-plan-ahead–filled history of the Generic Medieval Europe Sandwich; how do I city-states; more places and important people have names now yesssss; it’s gonna be a whole lot easier to be friends with tentacle manaphy now that I finally know what its name is and what it looks like~ (and also what its stats are hahahahaha sorry arceus except I’m not sorry at all, keep up with the times and go get a mega you loser)
Gonna see if I can be at 50k by Wednesday! (But I’ll probably keep going rather than stopping like I usually do once I hit my NaNo mark, since this is just notes cleanup... then again, none of my actual story-stories were finished by the time I hit 50k in all my past NaNos, but I still stopped... I should, uh, stop that. By continuing. To write. Um. I’m tired.) And hopefully I’ll also have made my last few major story decisions by the end of that day, too; I’d like to be at a point where I’m comfortable starting the story so I can actually get some of it written during NaNo...
-Got enough additional junk/organization out of my head that I was finally able to start hacking my way through the Ungodly Mountain of Notes in earnest over the last few days. There were a looot of ideas and unanswered questions that were still locked up in the ol’ brainbox, apparently, and then those ended up spurring new ideas. Which is good! But yeah, it definitely delayed the real meat of this organization effort. Just for a bit of perspective on the Ungodly Mountain, that document in and of itself is over 51,000 words. I already have enough notes and questions and scattered ideas to fill a NaNovel just in that one document, which I’ve been adding to over the course of two+ years. And I’ve only just started digging into it as of, what, end of Friday? I thiiiiink it’s safe to say that I’ll make 50k pretty comfortably.* It is also pretty safe to say that I’ll be doing this forever oh god.
(*I’m not claiming that 50k words of idea organization is just as difficult as 50k words of something that is in at least the vague shape of actual prose, even if one is writing said prose hastily. It’s nowhere near as difficult as all the NaNos I did actually write proper stories for, that’s for sure. I probably shouldn’t even have bothered with the official site for such an egregiously non-regulation NaNo, but for whatever reason November seems to be the only time I can be even remotely productive when it comes to my writing work, and having the official wordcount stats and widgets and expected goals (and my garchomp!) helps keep me motivated. I’ve gotta find a way to work like this during the rest of the year. :/)
-The other reason I’m only just getting a solid start on the Ungodly Mountain of Notes is because I spent the first few days of the week writing parts of a scene from “Holding Out for a Hero” instead of what I was actually supposed to be doing. It’s not even a scene that’s likely to be in the story (it’s already going to be long enough without a prologue or extra flashback or whatever this is argh), but it has helped me clarify a few things, at least. Made a few of the characters’ previously baffling decisions more reasonable, gave me a bit more insight into the protagonist’s ~feelings~ about the whole biblical kaiju situation she’s dealing with, that sort of thing.
-Not much actual progress on the Canterbury Tales whatever whatever, although I think I am homing in on some solid starting points for at least a few of the short stories. Also toying with ideas for some additional protagonists for the frame story. I still don’t really know what the frame story is or why all these weirdos are sitting wherever they are yapping at each other, but I do know that these two are going to have a lot of fun getting on one another’s nerves as they go on their As Yet Undecided Story-Time Avoidance Adventure. And by “they’re going to have fun” I mean “I’m going to have fun, they’ll probably hate it, honestly.” And maybe they might solve a mystery or something, I dunno. That’s what teenagers do when you leave them alone for long enough, right?
-Also touched on this week: fancy religions centered around the Tao trio; lucky articuno feathers; shuckle wine; witchcraft; how to make fat stacks of cash with teleport. Also, let’s all be friends with tentacle manaphy~♪
Now I’mma just sit back and enjoy the mega garchomp in my sidebar, whee. 6220 words in one day! I don’t think I’ve ever written that much in one NaNo day, like, ever, even during the NaNos where I was behind and struggling to catch up. (I don’t actually know that, my memory is awful, but I’m pretty sure I always paced myself when I was behind and didn’t do more than ~5000 a day?) Chipping away at the Ungodly Mountain + barfing sudden ideas about legendaries onto the page does wonders for my progress, apparently.
(So does my back feeling a lot better. That helps.)
-Am definitely doing more Arilterra work, although for the time being I’ve decided against the wiki because I can write more and faster without having to think about even the pretense of “presentability”. (Even accounting for the fact that it would’ve been a NaNo version of “presentable”, a.k.a. “not presentable in the slightest how can there be so many nonsensical and horribly-worded things on one page who told you it was a good idea to let people see this”.) Still gonna do somethin’ at some point, though. Y’all ain’t gettin’ out of this that easy.
-Buuuuut I did come up with an idea for a story! Er. Stories. Well, not actually the stories themselves, not really, aside from a smidgen of “I already have these vague ideas for myths and folk heroes, maybe those?” But, uh, a frame story? I miiiiiight be attempting to rip off the Canterbury Tales, is what I’m saying. Only with ~10 tales instead of 22/the intended 120, no poetry/verse because ahahahahahaa me trying to write poetry, and with fewer excruciating stories about blah blah chivalry and who saw a girl first that literally put me to sleep when I listened to them and more stories about spider elves and murdercubone and awesome grandmothers and lesbian Robin Hood. I might make a couple of fart jokes, though. Can’t throw out all of the classic Chaucer, now, can I? Anyway, I just need to plan it out a little better (and yes I have to plan it I’m p. sure I’ve already said I’m not a pantser okay); then we’ll see if I end up writing any of it this November or afterward. I still fully intend to use the bulk of NaNo to finish my note cleanup, of course. Fancy story ideas or no, this needs to be done.
-Did a spot of country-rearranging and renaming on the map; doesn’t mean all that much at the moment, but it’s a huge relief to have some more logistics worked out and also to not have to keep babbling about “that-Vatican-theocracy-place-kinda-that-I-don’t-know-where-it-is”. (I kind of wish I’d actually written the placeholder out that way instead of just [Vatican]. Look at all those extra words...) Also, “Backwards Africa” is no longer called Backwards Africa and (because I couldn’t help taking the time to do some image-fixing as well as name-fixing) no longer looks so much like a backwards Africa or even a backwards South America, either.
-Also figured out: a little bit more about how some fancy magic works, who the hell some of the aimless vague characters I’ve made up actually are and what they do (and hopefully the Canterbury Tales thing will make some of them slightly less aimless), how to bug-type people, maybe. Urticating hairs might be involved. I’m not totally sure. It’s something, though.
-Royally screwed up my back yesterday morning, with no warning and basically for no reason. Thankfully it doesn’t seem to be anything more than a sprain, but still. Thanks, laundry. Bad news: hurts to move, pretty much confined to bed for all of yesterday/today/I don’t know how much longer why aren’t the meds working yet dammit. Good news: apparently typing doesn’t count as moving at least until the carpal tunnel kicks in!
Also I got one of those NaNoWriMon dealios! He’s on my blog sidebar, but he can also be right here for those of you who, like me, probably aren’t in the mood to be somewhere other than your Tumblr dash right now.
I felt like making it slightly relevant to what I was doing and wanted something that was three stages + mega, so I decided that some folks had a guard gabite and, well, here he is. We’ll have to see if he gets up to anything interesting while everyone else is telling stories and making fart jokes.
Uh, I guess that’s it! Next week: more ideas, maybe half an idea what I’m doing with this story/these stories, might sneak in some “Holding out for a Hero” outlining, hopefully a lot less back pain (meeeeeeds why do you fail meeeee)!
Phoenix's Fanwork Projects and Mini-Rambles about the Current State Thereof
(with occasional added commentary about National Novel Writing Month plans because heeeeeey, kids, it's that time of year!)
AKA: an attempt to provide some semblance of context for all those things I keep whining about with no context. As much as I can without rambling on for too long, divulging spoilers, making promises I can't keep or getting close to information I don't actually have yet, anyway. Possibly slightly marginally a little bit useful for those of you who only joined the party recently thanks to the Ethereal Gates LP or MEWCOOL or the owlbears, and don’t yet realize what sort of constant, vague rambling you’ve gotten yourselves into. (To clarify for you fine new-follower-type folks: yes, I occasionally do fanart, and yes, I make a lot of fakemon. I also (attempt to) write fanfiction and do worldbuilding stuff and maybe play around with game dev, a little bit, maybe.)
The act of talking about this stuff out in the open has probably jinxed some of these projects into the "Never Gonna Happen" pile, but hopefully that won't be the case this time, eh?
Anything that has some currently visible component somewhere should have a link to it. Obviously unfinished things will not have said links. You can click on the links and look at the things if you want, I suppose.
Okay! Alphabetical List of Things I Am Ostensibly Working On, go!
721 mini
AKA: That thing where I write one drabble (100-word story) for every single pokémon
Type of thing: Fanfic/drabbles
Status: 77/721 written (well, 78, but I never posted one of them because I want to redo it)
Mostly self-explanatory, and yes, still a thing that is happening even though I haven't touched it all year. The drabbles are of wildly varying tone, genre, quality and ridiculousness—somehow I've managed to write a thing about mystical ninetales magic and a thing about how diglett are actually drilbur in a costume on the same goddamn page—but I figure that I should leave most of the less-than-perfect ones alone until I have more of them written (aside from the aforementioned #78, which I guess I'm being pickier about as it's about one of my favorite pokémon). I do rather like some of them, though.
I'm half tempted to try this for NaNoWriMo just to get it moving again and make some serious headway before Gen VII happens and increases the dex size for a third time since I first started toying around with stories for every pokémon/evolution line/whatever. 50k words would be 500/721 drabbles, if I'm not mistaken, and I'd just have to do seventeen of them per day. Seventeen different ideas a day for thirty days sounds like pain, though, so probably not.
Altered Origin
AKA: That thing where I put whatever fandom/fanwork-related (mostly Pokémon) stuff I occasionally barf out
Type of thing: Fansite
Status: I am the worst parent
Such a bad parent, in fact, that I've managed to go without updating all year so far. Didn't even get around to my annual "Fandom Resolutions" post back in January, although to be fair I didn't really come up with any because I was too focused on my Ungodly Video Game Backlog. (At least I've made a little headway on that...) If nothing else, before the year is out I intend to clean up the Ethereal Gates LP and crosspost it there, and I do have a few new pieces of artwork to add (MEWCOOL, etc.). I'd still like to do something nice for the site's 8th birthday on December 3rd, however, and NaNo will probably eat up a lot of the time I'd have to work on that. If some Arilterra stuff does reach a presentable stage—see below—then I guess that'd be something, but I don't want to bank on that. I kind of want to do a new style that's based on skiddo, since I have styles for my other two favorite pokémon, but that's not content. There's also part of me that wants to move the site off WordPress and use a static site generator or something, as AO doesn't have anything that requires a database backend aside from comments, and I can just punt those off to Disqus or something. But I'm not done testing the alternatives yet, and there's nothing wrong with sticking with WordPress, so I dunno. Hopefully I'll find enough time and enough moments of minimal hand pain to work on something during November. Or I can start a new LP, I suppose, which could just begin on the 3rd, but that's still going to require some thinking and preparation and clearing out of more backlog.
Arilterra
AKA: That thing with the Tolkien nonsense that I simultaneously never shut up about and never explain in any meaningful detail
Type of thing: Fan... worldbuilding... maybe fanfic?... thing
Status: Drowning under all these haphazard notes, please send help
Aha. Aaaahahahaha. Ha.
Whirlwind summary for those who are new/have miraculously managed to miss my earlier aimless gibbering about this crap: Tolkien-esque fantasy (elves, dwarves, etc.), but with added "what if instead of magic there was Pokémon". It's okay if you want to unfollow me now, I'll understand.
This is technically a worldbuilding project rather than a fanfiction project. That's why I'm not leaning harder on getting a story draft bashed out—I'm not "avoiding the actual project" by building instead of writing because the world is the actual project, and any stories that end up set in said world are just nice to have. I want to take a fantasy world, full of its own cultures and customs and locations, and see how thoroughly (and entertainingly) I can work pokémon into it. What would that change, not just about the way the world develops, but about some of the common fantasy tropes you see? Worldbuilding in general is fascinating, but what additional tools and ideas can I use if I have pokémon available to me as well? That sort of thing. It's weird, and ultimately I don't know how interesting it will be to other people because it's so different from the long-form Pokémon media you usually see fans (or canon) producing, but it's the sort of massive creative exercise that I really enjoy thinking about, so I'm happy.
I did some work on this last NaNo, but a lot has changed and so my current plan for this November is to revisit my Big Ungodly Pile of Notes Cleanup and actually get somewhere meaningful with it this time. (World Building June didn't go so well, as some of you will recall, but I've won every NaNo I've ever done except the very first, so in theory I'm a lot more likely to get stuff done this time...) The difference is that I'd like to have something tangible to show for all this work and all the annoying blabber I keep pestering y'all with. To that end I'm going to see what I can do about getting the initial information into something resembling a shareable condition, or at least as "shareable" as anything ever is immediately after thirty frantic days of NaNo waffle. IDK, I may chicken out of actually sharing it right away, even if only for post-NaNo editing purposes, but I'll be attempting to add and structure what I write with presentability in mind. (Last time it was mostly just notes for my sake that I hadn't intended to show off directly.)
Even though this project isn't supposed to require a story I still feel like a narrative of some kind would be fun at this stage, so I may take 5,000–10,000 or so of the words and dedicate them to a... travelogue? I dunno what to call it. May actually just be little snippets of "story" that go with some of the pages. Whatever it is, I guess I'd better decide quickly, hahaha... ha...
Should any of my vague Arilterra-related plotbunnies solidify by the end of the month then maybe I'll write those for NaNo instead, but I'm not focusing on stories right now so that's unlikely.
Holding Out for a Hero
AKA: That thing where Tabitha is a wizard and Shelly can turn into a shark monster
Type of thing: Fanfic/one-shot(?)
Status: A decent outline (currently being revised) and a few pieces of the first draft written
This train wreck is supposed to be a silly superhero-filled punchfest reimagining of the climax of Emerald Version (although it borrows the ORAS versions of Aqua and Magma because, you know, the admins are actually individual characters in the remakes instead of people who are only distinguishable from normal grunts by their annoying laughs). I came up with it for the "action" prompt for the Serebii Fan Fiction Mafia's "Hoenn Gauntlet" challenge. That was last year and is now so far past the deadline that I don't even know, but I love Wizard Tabitha and Shark Week She-Hulk Shelly too much not to keep going, even with me not knowing the first thing about writing superheroes and supervillains. I feel like this might end up being a little longer than a "one-shot", but it's certainly not a multi-chapter epic or anything. I actually have a few decent chunks of this written! Aside from a little addition a few weeks ago I haven't touched it in a good while, though. I'm currently reworking bits of the outline, and when I'm done with that I swear I'm going to keep going with the first draft aaaaaaaaaaaa
(In fact, even though it has nothing to do with Arilterra, I'm tempted to cheat a little and force myself to bash some of this out for NaNo, too. I want to finish iiiiiiit ;-; )
IdeaDex
AKA: That thing where I reblog a lot of weird animals and things that would make cool fakemon
Type of thing: Tumblr
Status: Moving a little slowly
Obviously this is still around, although I haven't had a lot of time/attention span to fill up the queue or answer the big backlog of questions, so posts have been a mite more sporadic than their usual once per day. Definitely need to set aside some time to answer those asks, if nothing else. Some of them are from months and months and months ago because I am a terrible person :(
I'm also going to clean up that "how to make fakemon that look like pokémon" post from a few days ago, and after that maybe work on a few other longer advice posts. Not sure what, though...
Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen
AKA: That thing with Giratina complaining about stuff all the time, AKA the reason I keep tagging giratina-related posts with something about someone named "Virgil"
Type of thing: Fanfic/chaptered
Status: Partial first draft, though idk if I'm going to keep it as-is
The first draft of this old thing was my NaNo project for 2010, although I've had the initial idea since 2008. Giratina gets turned into a human for some nonsensical reason and ends up going on a badge quest because Mew is a jerk for some nonsensical reason. (I do actually have reasons for these things, for the record, but I'm not totally satisfied with them.) I may turn this into something else that involves even more nonsensical legendaries instead of a journeyfic, though; possibly something like a silly argument somehow being settled during a tournament? IDK. Even though it's not my primary focus right now I still like it enough to want to do something with it, so I'll see what I can figure out.
Pokémon Turquoise
AKA: That thing where you can roleplay your way through the New Logora region
Type of thing: Forum roleplay
Status: Still active, although nothing plot-relevant has happened in a while
I'm going to be totally honest and say that my heart hasn't been in this much lately, and so I haven't been able to think up anything interesting to progress the plot. (Everything I do already know happens much later in the story, unfortunately.) If I can, I might try to come up with something for folks to do for Halloween, at least. I've got "trick-or-treating" in my head, but I'm not sure how I might set that up in a forum RP quite yet. Hm.
The Best at Second-Best
AKA: That thing with Blue in it
Type of thing: Fanfic/chaptered
Status: First draft finished, though it's probably going to undergo some serious changes
FRLG from Blue's point of view. Mostly just me having fun with how annoying he is + playing with the idea that the little brat actually has some redeeming qualities. My one-shot The Best Game was originally supposed to be a part of this, but I ditched the idea of using flashbacks in the main story so that technically stands on its own now. This already has a very shaky but technically complete draft, but I'm thinking of trying a different angle with this, too. Not sure if I want to cut it down to mostly just the important battles and locations, for example, or maybe something a little more out there.
No, Blue's raticate doesn't die in this story, before you ask. I have a better plan for explaining where it went. It's not as complicated as you might think.
The Phoenixdex
AKA: That thing y'all already know about and is presumably why a lot of people are following me, but just in case you're new here it's that thing where I work on a giant, multiple-region fakedex
Type of thing: Fakemon stuff
Status: Workin' on some new 'mans
Right now I'm just focusing on adding more new fakemon—I have some spoopy critters I want to get up by Halloween, a few revamps because I rearranged bits of Accolanto again, and then I want to make sure that I have about 150 fully-evolved fakemon up by the end of March, so I'll be continuing to add a few more of those each month to reach that number. After NaNo I may do a little more work on writing up descriptions and making proper pages for Accolanto's locations, since I do already have them all mapped. Need to set aside some time to actually get pictures of all the important characters (gym leaders, etc.) done as well, although since I'm still feeling pretty shaky with my people-drawing skills that will have to wait a while. I've been toying with using some of those online "dollmaker" dress-up games to throw together some temporary prototypes; that's not going too well so far, since I'm being picky about them and can't find any that have wide enough ranges of body types/ages/skin tones/clothes/etc. for what I would consider presentable temp images. Eh, I'll figure something out eventually.
Walking Rocks
AKA: That thing where there are cowboys in Hoenn for some reason and an aggron punches a train in the face
Type of thing: Fanfic/one-shot
Status: Most of an outline that needs to be reworked and a few itsy-bitsy draft bits, mostly about aggron punching trains
The "Hoenn Gauntlet" I mentioned in the notes on Holding Out for a Hero actually contained multiple prompts, and this story is the only other one I had any solid ideas for. I'm not sure why I was able to come up with more ideas for a western set in tropical Hoenn, of all places, than I was for a mystery or a cuddly story about friends or whatever, but hey, once you start writing about an aggron punching a train you can't really look back. Walking Rocks isn't a priority at the moment, but I definitely do want to shore up the rest of the plot and then complete the draft at some point. After I finish the superhero nonsense, maybe.
ZC Tower/The Calivera Games
AKA: That thing where you can use my fakemon in some simple single-player battles
Type of thing: Fangame/Pokémon Essentials
Status: An old 1.0 version exists but is not currently available; working on 2.0 for early next year
I dunno if any of you remember that old-ass "game" where you could do an extremely basic Battle Tower challenge with my fakemon, but yeah, that, only better. Hopefully. More up-to-date with new fakemon and newer-gen mechanics, if nothing else. I may actually attempt to expand it into something more like Stadium/PBR/a Battle Frontier, although I still have a lot more to learn about Essentials before I give any serious consideration to trying that. I would like to release the initial 2.0 version on the Phoenixdex's 6th birthday at the end of next March, which is not enough time to do all the fancy Stadium-y things I'd eventually like to do, but hey, baby steps. As such, at the moment all I'm gunning for is feature parity with the old one (such as it was... that basically just means "working Battle Tower") and all the 6th-gen mechanics and newer fakemon/moves/abilities/etc. I can add/program without tearing my hair out.
The title is technically "ZC Tower" at the moment, but if I do get around to expanding it into more than just a lonely little Battle Tower it'll probably change to "The Calivera Games" or something similar. S'part of why I haven't actually talked about the Calivera region on the Phoenixdex yet—it's not a normal badges-and-pokédexes-and-evil-teams-and-so-on sort of thing, and I have a lot more thinking to do about it before I put anything down for people to look at. Or play with, I guess.
Other Stuff
I have a few other one-shot ideas in the pipeline, although I don't have enough to say about them to make 'em worth separate sections. There's something I thought up when I noticed that evil team contest on Serebii four days before the deadline (I need to lurk moar, oops), and a weird thing about messing with the good ol' Gen 1 glitches. Speaking of glitches, I am still tinkering with Mnemosyne, but although I've mentioned bits about characters like Jack Red here and there I don't really have anything concrete to say about it at this time. I've also got a different trainer fic idea, Bonne Chance, simmering in the back of my mind and a in few notes, but it's mostly just characters at the moment and no real plot aside from "go get badges yes go".
Beyond that, I'm still kicking around the idea of a Uranium LP, or perhaps NetHack for a rather more dramatic change of pace (read: dying a lot). I do also have another idea for a fangame, one that would actually permit some exploration and whatnot as opposed to just being a bunch of battles and nothing else, but I've got some logistical issues to sort out before I properly commit to that—it's highly likely that it'll be done in something entirely different from RMXP/Essentials, for one thing. Using the other thing will save me the trouble of having to get all those art/tile/music/etc. assets and also let me be dangerously experimental just because I can, I suppose. I will go so far as to say that it's probably gonna happen in a new region and may or may not have some of my fakemon in it (likely including the owlbear guys if so), but it may not, because I guess they aren't strictly necessary and may be tricky to pull off in the Essentials alternative. I may save the new region for something else later. Maybe something like the Custella Region blog? I've always thought that was a really clever way to present a region.
Also, video game backlog. Got some Fire Emblem games to finish up next, in case you were curious, and then I need to start Twilight Princess. (I just finished Ace Attorney Investigations 2 and will probably be rambling about that in a little bit, because it was full of all the silly tiny unnecessary details and terrible jokes that I crave in my video gaming experiences. LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE INSIGNIFICANT AND COMPLETELY POINTLESS REASON THAT KNIGHTLEY IS MY FAVORITE, YOU GUYS.)
In Summary
I have too many plans and too many things to do and a distressing number of decisions to make before October is out—doesn’t help that I’m about to head off to a wedding in a few hours and may have spotty internet for the next few days, although at least I’ll have my laptop—and as a result I am a sad panda (albeit a sad panda who is still very much in love with the ideas themselves). But hopefully I'll be able to get at least a few of these ornery ducks in a row and actually goddamn finish something for once, which will make me a happy panda. Wish me luck! Lord knows I'm gonna need it...
