#space-cadead

[newmoonjuno]

Heads Up, Seven Up / Last Lines

So - been a long while since I tackled a lot of the tags that I've been tagged in. So to @lockejhaven, @space-cadead, @marigoldispeculiar, @writingpotato07 - uhh you guys are awesome, thanks for thinking to include me and I'm sorry it has taken me so long.

As far tagging goes, this is going to be a free for all. Because how much I am putting in here.

Heads Up Seven - last seven lines! Only I feel like this won't be but I am working on NaNoWriMo soooo this may not have seven.

--

“There’s something you need to know, dearest Salima.” Janvier’s smile became a little too wide for Sellie’s liking, her hand gripping just a little too tight to her cheek. Her nails dug into the surface of her skin. All of her hair, flowing and crimson nearly draped over Sellie as if ready to drown her.

Not like Sellie could run. She wanted to.

She didn’t have to say a word - Janvier already knew. 

“The eyes and ears can be fooled, but the spirit never lies.”

She released Sellie from that crimson, never releasing her gaze until she turned on her heel.

It took several hours to feel like she could properly breathe again.

--

And some last lines: there will be few here. I will put a read more here. These aren't one after the other as far being in a paragraph.

They are are not all connected, fyi.

Last Line #1:

Was this all legacy? All legacy ever was or would be?

Last Line #2

From his skin to his bones, it was like something had burst open.

Last Line #3

Another thing unspoken: without Ana, there was something her father lacked to make up for for her presence.

[raevenlywrites]

Happy (late) wbw!! Tell me about a favorite food your mcs eat and (if it has one) what the cultural significance of said food is!

The foxes and fate house lives on mac n cheese. It is significant in the sense that its a food Tybee learned to cook especially because Lia likes it. Tybee, who could burn cereal. Mac n cheese is the food of love

[alistonjdrake]

Happy Storyteller Saturday buddy. If you have a sec, I'd love to hear a bit about the school and the *ahem* secret society in whtd!

Alex buddy if you want me to word vomit all you have to do is scream into the night and I’ll hear you. 

Wittmore Academy for Boys was built sometime in the 1700s in upstate Connecticut. In the early to mid-2000s it was one of if not the top school in the state. With an impressive list of alumni and being famous for a strict and well-rounded education, New Englanders are not the only ones who attend because of the assumed “Wittmore Advantage” on college applications and future job prospects. But there is a Wittmore elite of old or renowned CT families. 

Wittmore is not just a high school. It had a middle school section that’s notably smaller and harder to get into than the high school. Usually, you’d only start Wittmore in the 6th grade if you’re a legacy family or have a very impressive application (at the age of 11, go figure). They have an interview process that’s similar to what they do with potential high school applicants but it also involves a faculty member visiting the home of the student and watching them in their natural habitat and there’s just a stronger focus on building a relationship with the family. This is why Wittmore middle schoolers are usually exclusively Connecticut born and bred. Of primary characters in We Heard the Devil, Ignatius Rothley and Callum Kircher (Gopher’s friend) have both been at Wittmore since 6th grade. 

Wittmore is pretty strict about a lot of things. Education of course. It’s mentioned in WHtD but they have classes on Saturday (that are technically considered extracurricular activities but it’s 100% a class. There’s 3 of them and they last 2 hours each and as on every day they have a mandatory study hall in the evening) Students can leave campus on the weekends (senior students do not need parent permission for this) and there’s a bus that goes into the nearby town of they can be picked up. Students are not permitted to have cars. Sunday is really the only free day which might be odd considering the chapel on campus but Wittmore is not actually a religious institution (not anymore) and while they are optional services and youth group meetings, it’s not required. On Sundays, students are allowed free reign of the activity hall in the “club” building where they may use things like TVs and gaming consoles and read books that are not part of the curriculum. They look forward to these days.

But Wittmore is also strict about its uniform and dress code, how long a student is allowed to grow their hair, the style, piercings (absolutely not). They’re grooming gentlemen here, okay? Not rebels. 

Now. secret societies. Started in the later half of the 1900s when Wittmore stopped being a religious institution (officially) alumni needed to find a way to continue to ensure the success of students and themselves. The Wittmore Elite, the legacy families, agreed that to do so bodily sacrifice is required. Wittmore sits on old land and there’s always been a group of legacy family alumni that would meet yearly. To some, the Wittmore Advantage is just one a couple words on your resume but to them the school is alive. And it cannot succeed unless it’s fed. They decided that each year it would be the burden of the graduating class (and their sons especially) to choose the sacrificial lamb to be bled in the woods surrounding Wittmore before the graduation ceremony. Who each class chooses is usually a pretty personal or generational thing. They choose someone less likely to succeed or the black sheep or someone they wouldn’t want to stain the reputation of the school. Being a member of the cult and the choosing party is considered a great burden but also a great honor. It proves that they’ll be able to make tougher decisions later in life. Now how often they meet and their rituals will remain a thing to learn in WHtD.

This was a lot of word vomit. Thanks for coming to my ted talk I love WHtD

[raevenlywrites]

Happy STS! What's a typical writing day look like for you?

Well, today has been an editing day, which means opening up the file I want to edit, the main body file I’m compiling it all into, and a blank doc. I’ll then start re-typing everything from the doc I’m editing, word for word, until new words come. I like that style because it kind of lets my brain go soft focused, relaxing me and taking the perfectionist edge off editing. IDK if it would work for everyone, but it works for me. The main body file has a loose skeleton in it, and as I clean up the scenes, I add them into the body, replacing the placeholder skeleton words, like “first date scene”, “write a transition between here and here scene”, or “and then it all went horribly wrong”. Eventually I get a whole draft that way :D

On non editing days, I just mess around, writing whatever the heck interests me that day, til I have enough scene files that I can start outlining in a main body doc.

And of course, there are liberal breaks for tumblr, cleaning, and harassing my cat sprinkled in

[raevenlywrites]

Happy wbw! tell me about about hobbies. What do people like to do for fun? What keeps them from getting too bored?

Tybee has a particularly interesting hobby: untangling ancient faery magic puzzles. Somewhere between a rubix cube, Simon, and a lie detector test, faery tangles hold secret wisdom, ancient spells, and sometimes even spirits. Tybee mostly fiddles with them for fun, as a way to relax and untangle his own mind. But they’re also quite profitable, and much of his considerable wealth comes from untangling these puzzles for people for commission.

[alistonjdrake]

Happy worldbuilding Wednesday my dude tell me what's going on in the world of tnc

I’m cleaning out my ask box and apparently I AM human trash because I missed this.

The Night Court takes place in the same world as Of Rust and Gold/The Saints Song, just in a different time period although they’re not that far apart. For context ORG starts in the in-world year of 1782 and ends and I won’t say what year it ends because...spoilers? The Night Court takes place in 1835. So it’s been 53 years. The characters of TNC are all from and live in Gegra, a country in what’s considered the “high north” is pretty much the opposite of the Escana Empire. 

It’s not an imperial state. The weather is super different (seasons??? nah. just snow and rain). And Gegra has a particular set of rules that’s not often spoken about outside of the country. Mainly the courtesan thing. In The Night Court, they’re entering another wave of spurned spouses arguing for the keeping of a courtesan to count as adultery (it’s currently not as in Gegra, despite what we all know courtesans do their work, based on them all being from noble/high born families and aligned to others like them, is considered more of a societal service than anything extracurricular. So in Gegra, it has never counted as cheating to get with a courtesan as long as you’re paying them). But on the other hand, there are some courtesans protesting to get rid of the old system based on the few who have abused it in the past and want to do without Madames and rigid rules.

The Ulra, a minority group that lives in Gegra have been reduced to alarmingly small numbers because of the recent increase of Oskyan soldiers marching through Gegra and picking about communities to add to their armies and other problems. Gegra is split basically between the Lowlands and the Highlands. In OVS Prince Aayden mentions that whenever Gegraen lords want to expand into the Highlands they need to come together and agree on a new border Gegra and Oskya rarely see eye to eye on who owns how much of the Highlands and what goes where, whenever this happens the Ulra usually end up pushed out /on the losing side given that they’re not recognized by either government as belonging anywhere even through Gegra as a nation silently agrees that they exist as the “mountain people”. The Ulra technically aren’t supposed to leave the mountains either but because of these events, some have found loopholes in attempts to build elsewhere. 

There’s a resurgence of older, traditional faiths versus Santivism as Codua, the Justice, and the Saints fall out of favor across the continent. 

But other than these things, it’s still pretty much the world I introduce in ORG, just that most of if not all the characters from ORG/TSS would be dead by then or irrelevant to the lives of Gegraen courtesans who have their own fish (and living gods) to fry. 

[alistonjdrake]

Hey buddy feel like word vomiting about WHtD?? Uhhhhhh tell me about the mc

Heyo pal thank you for aiding my obsession. 

Gopher was born in 1990 (I haven’t picked a birthday yet) in Connecticut to a mom and dad who would have very little impact on his life. He was raised by his uncle who was a travel/food blogger in the early 2000s before everyone decided to be just that and it was a lot harder to make any leeway doing so. 

As a kid he really wanted to be an artist but never took the time to learn how to draw/put in any practice because he’s “lazy” and gives up easily so he never got very far with it. 

He’s one of those edgy teenagers who thinks his pessimistic nature and general asshole-ness makes him more mature but really he’s just a dick who doesn’t bathe very often and has no friends. The bathing thing is 100% mainly because he hates communal bathrooms and very rarely wakes up early enough to shower without the pressure of 30 other dudes trying to do the same thing and rushing him. 

Gopher imagines himself as more outgoing than he really is. He’s a dick so his jokes and remarks almost never stick the way he wants them to and most people just don’t vibe with his personality but he’s never shy and is at times almost too shameless and confident for no good reason. 

He’s a mess, actually.

[alistonjdrake]

Happy storyteller saturday, tell us about my favorite communist Dom dad 💖

Please. Let Val have some dignity.

Random Fact Time

He was born a twin and had a sister named Josefina for about 3 days.

He’s been engaged twice. 

Wants to get into gardening but every plant he’s ever touched dies.

Although he played a small role in an assassination attempt when he was 16, most of his charges have to do with illegal assemblies.  He just thinks telling people about the assassination attempt is more badass. 

He actually never wanted to have kids given he blames the fallout of his parents’ marriage and the shaky relationship between his aunt and uncle on their ability to have children/healthy children and did not predict he’d end up the pseudo-dad for a twenty-something manchild (lol at me for rewriting and reworking the timeline so I’m no longer 100% sure how old Argus will be when they meet)

His ideal date is reading 16th-century poetry, drinking a nice cup of coffee, all while his partner crawls around on all fours and does minor tasks for him/be at the ready to refill his cup when needed. 

He’s always preferred to date taller men (not like that’s hard)