#ridoc's romcom

[plum-petals]

spyverse part ii spoiler week: day three

day three, I'm going to cheat and spoil a bit of an upcoming chapter for ridoc gamlyn's guide to tripping and falling in love!

I'm really excited for this little spin-off adventure! I have a lot of fun stuff planned for Ridoc, Ivan, and their dragons, including some Sawyer/Jesinia goodness.

I couldn't decide between two snippets, so you get both of them

Snippet 1

"Hey."

Ridoc loves Ivan's freckles.

One new piece of information that he discovers about himself is that he could stare at the mender's face for hours and still be unable to count them all… Sure, they are a quantifiable number, but Ridoc would no doubt get distracted when Ivan said something hilarious or did something cute, and be forced to start over again.

(Happily. The seventeen that line the bridge of his nose are especially alluring.)

"Hello?"

Aotrom was unfortunately correct. He does sort of want to bite them. His appreciation for Ivan's spots—as his dragon calls them—is one of the many things that Ridoc discovers about himself in the days following his epic realization. But there are more pressing matters to be concerned over… like the dark eyelash sticking to the apple of Ivan's cheek that keeps distracting his count.

"Ridoc!"

Ridoc jumps at the whisper-yell of his name and realizes that he had lost focus staring at Ivan during one of their study sessions. For the second time this week. He could have sworn he used to be cooler than this, pun completely intended.

Snippet 2

One of the problems with Ridoc realizing that he is suddenly committed to the mere idea of someone is that everyone else… well, they don't realize it.

He can't help but feel it's unfair. All of his previous and prospective romantic entanglements should have sensed the rightful shift in the universe, just like he did when it kicked his ass.

(But instead, everyone has the audacity to just continue on, uncaring of his crisis. Rude, if you ask him.)

'Your entire life is beginning to feel like a crisis,' Aotrom observes.

Ridoc winces. 'That'd be mean if it wasn't so true.'

[plum-petals]

Ridoc contemplating his feelings on the bathroom floor is so real😭

he is down-bad-loverboy-crying-in-the-club levels of pining 🤭

[plum-petals]

number 30 for the writing asks, pretty please

30. share a fic you're especially proud of

I'm going to take a minute to hype up ivan luperco’s guide to surviving the rider’s quadrant, because a lot of readers definitely skip it (which is fine in the grand scheme of things) but I think it's really good! It will definitely be recommended reading for anyone planning on following Ridoc's solo story during Part II.

Where "life of spies" is more of a vengeance story at its core driven by Violet's goals, this one is meant to be much more of a coming-of-age narrative. In addition to the Violet-from-an-outside-POV goodness, I also really love the sweet dynamic between Ivan and Ridoc. Even when it's not explicitly romantic, it's very wholesome.

While a more adversarial (at first) type of love is very compelling (hello riorgail), Ridoc and Ivan's story is a lot sweeter. Softer. More gentle, maybe.

Anyways, I am proud of it! This is my proof that I am capable of a slow burn lol I just prefer that they kiss before i'm old and gray usually

[plum-petals]

"The fact is that Ivan realized on the battlefield that he was terribly in love with Ridoc Gamlyn." I can't... That sweet boy! And now you have mentioned there will be "Ridoc Gamlyn's guide to tripping and falling in love"! You really do spoil us with this side pairing. I have never shipped Ridoc with anyone before, but I sure do now.

And of course Ridoc will from now on call V/X Riorgail all the time, which will probably make Xaden beg Violet to teach him some non-lethal but possibly boil inducing poison. Oh, the joy!

He's my baby boy 💛

Hahahah I'm honored! I literally can't wait to start posting it! I'm farther into Ridoc's Romcom than I am into part ii. It's just soooo fun. He might be one of my favorite POVs to write in.

Ridoc coining Riorgail as he should!!! He better be careful with that one 🤭

[plum-petals]

" She's crazy but she's mine " by Alex Sparrow is so Xaden and Violet 🤭 ( btw do we have a official spyverse playlist? For both Life of spies and stbk? )

omg, I love that! The lyric "she loves to get her ass in any danger" made me cackle!

I do have several spyverse playlists! There's the Part I playlist, which is over 100 songs. They used to be in some semblance of an order to follow the story, but I definitely just started tacking new songs I found to the end. I'd like to go through it and curate/shorten it a bit, but it's long enough to make a really good writing playlist in its current state.

I also have one for ridoc's side story and it's really short, but I love it. It's giving friends-to-lovers and professional loverboy Ridoc. It might be my favorite right now.

aaaand here's the bare bones playlist for Part II that I've really just started... on my long distance lovers bullshit.

+ and if that's not enough, I started one for specifically spyverse redux!

Those are just my spyverse playlists... I have more for my other fics 🤭

[plum-petals]

Ridan's love confession is, in my mind, a heartbreaking, jealous, dramatic, desperate yearning in-the-rain confession. Just me? Okay...😶

No spoilers buuuuut for all of Ridan's story, I can guarantee several things 🤭 Including a lot of dramatics, some jealousy, and more yearning than should be legal! There may even be some rain.

This story set-up is much different and I'm aiming for it to read like a romantic comedy, with the same sort of story beats. Some classic misunderstandings and miscommunication blunders, especially since I excised those from the main story soooo fast.

[plum-petals]

Happy spyvers anniversary!

Can't believe it's been a year.

Any celebratory plans?

Amazing story can't wait for more ❤️❤️❤️

HAPPY SPYVERSE ANNIVERSARY

my heart is so full 💜 no plans really! I am moving soon so I've been a bit busy. mister plum petals uses any excuse to suggest kbbq so we'll see!

I just posted the first chapter of Ridoc's solo story set during part II 🤭

[plum-petals]

Question, are we going to see some dragon bonding/courtship in the Ridoc Rom-com you're working on? Because if Ridoc and Ivan are not together yet that could get awkward. On the other hand the mutual pinning would be exquisite. Especially if it's followed by copious teasing from the draconian peanut gallery.

Hahaha yes we will! Aotrom and Labhair do play a vital role in Ridoc's romcom, but I don't want to go into detail quite yet because we'll get a bit more dragon context in the Ivan bonus chapter that I was planning on posting last week~ unfortunately I have been deep in redux and art thief au lately 🤭

Ivan 8 is like half-way done and I'm excited to get it up soon 💛