#spy character

[snail-plus-elise]

Full-body Cedar from last summer (cough made it for artfight lol)

[scriptlgbt]

when doing reasearch for a good but misguided spy with understandably split loyalties i found the character (genderfluid) might be falling into a trope/stereotype - is it a Big No-No or could it be balanced out by making another (very loyal, lawful good type) genderfluid as well? it would be no problem to change this other character but i should i scrap the spy being genderfluid?Spy would stay genderfluid after resolution of their spy/ambigiuity stuff btw that seems to be a problem in that trope?

Honestly I think having a genderfluid character being a spy would be rad. I'd advise having another genderfluid character but I don't think it's a big deal, and that other character could be minor or just mentioned in passing.

- mod nat

[rainbow-writers]

Hello!!! I have been inactive for a very long time 😭

This is a real quick introduction to my new (?) WIP, Where There’s Smoke. It has some of the bones™ of my previous WIPs, but I’m trying to persevere with this story. If I succeed, WTS will be the first novel I’ve completed in over a year!

I’ve made a new cover, and have some posters based on the four main characters’ (so far? it might go up to six I’m not sure yet) first chapters, all of which I’ve finished as of yesterday! (At least for the first draft.) Morpho, Viper, Gemini, and Glare are all codenames, as these characters are pretty involved in the world of urban fantasy espionage. 

A quick (kinda) introduction to these four knuckleheads:

Morpho (“I just think we should give women the space to be insane. as a treat”) is a self-preserving con-artist, headhunted and sought after by many for her exceptional talent at forging documents with the help of her illusiomythia. Illusion magic can extend further than forgery — shapeshifting, invisibility, and conjuring among them — but Morpho doesn’t use her powers for evil. She doesn’t want to hurt people. She just wants to make her money and move on. She wants stability, a close network, to be able to sleep without keeping one eye open, but realistically, that was never going to work. People like her didn’t get happy endings like that. Morpho is running away from... something bad.

She wasn’t sure how to feel when he betrayed her. Offended, surely. Impressed was next on the list, annoyingly. There was another emotion swirling within her, but she refused to acknowledge it.

Viper (“sorry! you have to be at least a Level 4 friend to unlock my tragic backstory!”)is a spookily observant assassin, returning from a four month vacation and looking to get back in the game. His experience with magic has been a rocky road — family blessing, or family curse? — and prior to the story’s beginning, he was voluntarily Sealed, his magic locked away inside his soul for good. He does thorough research on his targets before deciding whether he kills them or relocates them (without the one who paid for their death knowing). Luckily, he’s usually sent to kill some pretty bad people. But Morpho’s not the only one running from her past.

Normally, other people where the ones who waited for him. His time was valuable. He had schooled his features into neutrality before walking into the building, but he couldn’t deny the boredom was starting to get to him. 

Gemini (“god gives his toughest battles to his weakest soldiers. dear lord, please stop giving me battles”) is a talented coder and siren who wears her heart on her sleeve. Siren song is something special, and she doesn’t appreciate as being seen as little more than a pretty voice (a pretty voice that can convince the world around her to bend to her will, but that’s not the point). Besides, she hasn’t sung properly or in front of anyone in years, preferring to work her way up the ranks by working virtual magic rather than vocal. Maybe she could get back into music, into using her voice for the greater good... just as soon as she finishes this code that she hopes will find her long lost twin brother.

The red ‘ERROR’ message on the screen was disheartening enough, but the fact that this was the ninety-seventh time it had happened was downright upsetting. She could feel hot tears welling up, and she buried her face in her hands.  Four years, seven months, two weeks, and five days.

Glare (“my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined”) is a strong field agent who grew up in espionage, but now she’s faced with an entirely new challenge. Her magic is unstable. She’s always been able to control most of the things in her life — how she appears to others, her work — but this magic has thrown a spanner into the works. It’s interfering with her job, making it difficult to get things done, and if word got out it could ruin her career moving forward. She never asked for this. She never wanted this. But getting Sealed is out of the question — openly rejecting her magic would get her kicked out, and she could be fired for not being in control of her new abilities. Caught between a rock and a hard place, she needs a solution: and fast.

Her heartbeat spiked. She felt the control over her magic thin, then snap entirely. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the flash was bright enough to turn the insides of her eyelids red.

So yeah! That’s them, pretty much. Plot lmao what plot is something I’m working on at the moment: I’ve got some beats I’m looking forward to writing, but other than those moments, I’m not sure what connects them (very professional, I know). I’m using Campfire Write and I’m finding it pretty useful!

That’s all from me for now. I’m posting this partially because I want to try and be more active, and also I’m participating in NaNoWriMo* for the first time and I’m excited about it! I’ll try and remember to post an update next week :)

*I’m not going for the 50k WC challenge, so... is it still NaNoWriMo? Either way, I’m going to (ambitiously) aim for 15k, since most of my chapters average at around 2k words each!

[rainbow-writers]

Week 2 is still going pretty strong!!! I’m seriously super proud of the work I’ve done this week, even though I’m currently undergoing some... Doubts™ about certain aspects of the plot. I can feel myself starting to slip back into old patterns of overanalysing my writing to the point where I’m too upset with my work to actually continue and finish it. Like looking at a selfie for too long and starting to hate it.

But! I’ve decided that I’m not going to go back and edit and change plot lines (if indeed I do at all) until I finish Part One: The Thrill of the Chase. I’m hoping that strategy will help me persevere, even if I don’t always feel super great about my work. The 10th and the 13th were days were I felt really burnt out, but I still wanted to keep up my streak of writing every day from the 5th onwards. Ten days strong!

I’m overall pretty happy with what I’ve managed to put down this week. We’ve got nightclubs that only accept magic-users (with a magical tattoo parlour in the back), shady militant spy divisions with memory-suppressing technology, and family crime organisations with a shit-ton of repressed trauma.

Unfortunately no excerpts today, but maybe next week? I’m not sure. I’m falling in love with this story again (which I realise may make me sound like a bit of a narcissist) and it’s making me really, really happy :D

So that’s the update! Bit rambly, but what else is new?

[wildfaewhump]

Rough gravel, carefully scraped flat, is cold on their bare feet. The spy shifts slightly, testing the pinch of the cuffs linking their wrists and feet to a thick spike of rebar pounded into the ground behind them. The shell of what will one day be apartments is beginning to take form around and above them; skeletal concrete posts shore up what will be the foundation of the basement around them, and more climbs above ground in a tangle of rebar and scaffolding.

Somewhere nearby, they hear the wailing beeps of heavy machinery put in reverse.

"Sounds like the construction crews are starting to arrive," they comment idly.

Their interrogater, leaning on the ladder out of the pit, smirks. Their gun remains steadily trained on the spy. "That would be the cement truck," they confirm. "But don't get your hopes up; my team is just borrowing it."

The truck appears over the rim of the pit, backing up slowly until the chute is close enough to unfold over the future basement.

"They were scheduled to put the floor in today," the interrogator remarks. "I thought we'd get an early start, you know? Help them out a bit."

The spy tugs in a sudden burst of fear at their cuffs. "Wait-"

The interrogator climbs up the ladder and signals to the truck. With a horrible grinding sound, the massive drum begins to churn, and the first flecks of sludge start to roll down the chute.

"Wait, don't-" the spy lurches against the rebar, scattering gravel underfoot. The only way out of the pit is up the ladder their interrogater guards. Even if their hands were free, there'd be no scaling the pit's sheer walls of hard-packed earth.

"Last chance," their interrogator calls over the rumble of the truck. "Who hired you, and where did you send the information you stole?"

Concrete hits the ground with a wet flop and splatters outwards, creeping slowly but surely towards the spy. They shift again, keenly aware of the texture of rock and dirt against their bare feet.

"It doesn't work like that," they plead. Words spill faster as the flow of concrete down the chute continues. "I don't know where it went, I only had instructions on how to send it! I was hired anonymously, it's safer for everyone that way, please-"

"Nearly everyone, anyway. Didn't seem to be of much help to you." Their interrogator leans on the top of the ladder. "I don't believe you. Someone of your caliber doesn't go into jobs like this blind. You know more than you're giving me."

A cold fleck of wet concrete splatters across their foot. The spy yelps. Their wrists are bruised and torn from the force of their struggles by now. Their efforts only redouble. Concrete squishes between their toes when they lift first one foot, then another, but it's no use. The rebar doesn't budge, and the concrete only keeps coming.

Laughter floats down from above. The spy raises tear-streaked cheeks to see the rest of the inerrogator's team gathered around the pit.

"Looks like a fuckin dance," one shouts down, then demonstrates by hopping from one foot to another, mimicking the sounds of pain they're all already familiar with from the team's prior efforts at wringing the information from the spy. "Dance, you fucking jester, and maybe we'll end it quick!"

"Pay up," another calls over them. "They cried less than five minutes after seeing the truck."

"Damn it! Fine." The interrogator tosses a roll of bills to their teammate.

The spy gapes. Concrete oozes over the tops of their feet.

Fuck them all. They shut their mouth and begin a breathing exercise to calm the terror juddering through their body. The enemy team hoots and jeers above them, endlessly amused.

The truck's awful roar shuts off. The spy's eyes snap open, flicking from the top of the concrete around their ankles and up to the last of the sludge dripping from the chute.

The interrogator checks their watch. "It takes about thirty minutes for this type of concrete to harden enough to walk on. Not that you'll be walking anywhere, of course." They lean on the top of the ladder. "So I'd say you have about.... twenty-five minutes to decide if you would rather keep your feet, or your loyalty to your employer."

[sin-beanie]

time for my spy girl to make a comeback. welcome back zelania.