#trolley does nano
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IT'S DONE!!!!!!!!!
trolley completes nano!
a couple of weeks ago i would have said this was a complete impossibility, but we have made it, friends.
50,000 whole words in november, and 50,000 more words of solstice. this baby is so close to being a finished story now! i only needed 1315 today but have ended up doing almost 1900 thanks to the end of the current chapter presenting itself to me. my bastard cold did its best to take me down but i said no.
it has been a wild ride of a month and i am very much hoping that december will yield more chill and hopefully fewer dramatic health incidents, but hopefully plenty more writing. the end of solstice approaches, as does the colossal editing process, but i am so determined now to get this fic out and into the world. i'll share an extract soon as a little celebration but thank you to everyone who has cheered me through this month, and a special shout-out to @littlerose13writes for being my nano buddy!
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c a m p n a n o w r i m o w r a p u p ; don't pay the ferryman
so, my goal for nanowrimo last month was 10,000 words. and yeah, i managed to achieve that, by writing literally everything except my camp wip. oops. so here's a quick summary and excerpt from what i did manage to write for 'don't pay the ferryman'.
s u m m a r y
don't pay the ferryman was my camp nano wip for july. it's a 'the good place' inspired story that follows thea, a ferryman in the Afterlife. the Afterlife is an amalgamation of various afterlife concepts, the way it presents itself to the deceased is catered to the individual. in the case of cerys, thea's new fare, Afterlife presents itself in the form of a long taxi drive home.
thea has been working the Afterlife for as long as she can remember. she had been human, once. she had died and entered the Afterlife, armed only with the silver coins in her hand. it was there she had met her guide and made a fatal mistake. she handed him the coins. she paid him before the journey was done. in doing so, thea swapped places with him, becoming one of the ferryman.
now, presented with the opportunity, thea must make a choice. does she trick cerys into paying her, thereby securing her freedom? does she condemn the girl to a seemingly endless torment?
t r a n s c r i p t
So, to reiterate. Philosophy is derived from the ancient Greek word meaning love of knowledge. The study of Philosophy seeks to make meaning of a seemingly random existence whilst attempting to find the answers to questions there are no real answers to. The Trolley Problem could be avoided with adequate occupational health and safety standards and Phillipa Foot would have made for the world’s worst taxi driver. Or maybe the best, depending on your point of view.
#wip: don't pay the ferryman#camp nanowrimo#writeblr#camp nano july 2022#writing community#writing snippet#writing excerpt#my wrtiting#wip intro#sort of
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Watch Me Run - Part 21
Masterlist - Series Masterpage - Part 22 (epilogue)
Summary: You inherit a family relic that gives you the gift of foresight but there are others who are interested for more nefarious reasons. You turn to the Avengers for help. (Bucky x reader)
Chapter: The rest of the Avengers arrive, and you - reeling from the confrontation with Loki - try to decide what future you want.
Word Count: 4386
When a shimmering orange ring grew between the trees, you did not stir, though Bucky raised a weapon. You didn’t share in his surprise when Dr. Strange and the others walked through the portal and into the horror you’d made of the forest.
“What happened here?” he asked.
You didn’t answer, only stared at the bloodied ground and the stone, cold and dark on your chest. Bucky spoke with only a glare. He’d been consoling you for a while now, sweeping an endless river of tears from your skin, rubbing your arms to keep them warm, murmuring comforts like, “I’m here. It’s over now,” and, “It was your life or his, you did the right thing.” But it didn’t feel right.
It felt wrong, and corrupt with power, and not like you at all. You’d been given your first challenge, your first trolley problem, and you’d chosen to trade a life for a life. You’d wanted to be a wise stone-keeper, a selfless seer who led with a compassionate heart, who saved, not took. Now, holding two stones and hands tacky with drying blood, you wondered how you’d lost yourself so thoroughly.
“You’re injured,” Natasha observed quietly, withdrawing her fingers from the place where Loki’s pulse should have been.
“This was a mistake,” you muttered while Tony knelt beside you in an Iron Man suit you’d never seen before: leaner, more like an integrated exo-skeleton than armor.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner. You shouldn’t have had to do this alone,” his gaze shifted momentarily to Bucky. An array of light flashed over your skin from Tony’s suit, nano-molecular technology began reprinting your flesh, knitting it back together. Dr. Strange stepped closer, to see the nanotech in action as Tony moved on to Bucky’s wounded shoulder.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.” Your eyes remained locked on Bucky, pleading with him to understand, to forgive you, absolve you. “I don’t know what else to do.” He hushed you, comforted you with a gentle hand over your trembling fingers.
“You're pretty banged up,” Strange observed, lifting your elbow to examine another scrape. This one was dark and scabbed, new puckered skin blossomed at the edges. His scrutiny landed on a bruise kissing the curve of your jaw. It was a sickly shade of blue-green and fading to yellow at the rim. His eyes met yours and held your gaze, demanding answers to questions he’d not yet asked.
“It can’t end like this,” you whispered, voice tight in your throat and wet with grief. Slowly your eyes lifted to meet this stranger. “I didn’t want to kill him. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I just… I’m out of choices.”
“How long have you been doing this?” His voice was soft, but his face still held the sternness of judgement, of unimpeachable intelligence. It made you laugh to know what he couldn’t.
“Wrong question, Doctor,” you chuckled, dry and pained.
“What the hell does that mean?” Steve asked, mistrusting your demeanor and eyeing the scepter and its blue stone that he knew could bend minds and crush will.
“Just let her rest,” Bucky growled, helping you to your feet.
“I don’t think so, Buck,” Steve answered slowly, “Not yet.”
Dr. Strange’s scouring gaze turned to a frown. He didn’t like riddles. “so what’s the right question?”
“Time isn’t linear for a stone-keeper,” you explained, stepping forward out of Bucky’s protection. “How do you measure time when you can leap across it? When you spend as much time moving backward as forward? What you really want to know is…” you paused with a raised eyebrow, waiting for his answer.
“How many times,” Steve and Dr. Strange finished together. Steve’s entire body rolled at the realization. The gravity and loss contained in this knowledge. The failure. Strange only stared, somewhat awed and angry that he’d so underestimated you.
“To be honest I’ve lost count of how many times I have relived this moment.”
Bucky was stunned. His jaw, usually so resolute, hung slack. He looked you over with fresh eyes. The healing scrape on your elbow – days old. The mud on your boots caked thick like you’d been in the woods for hours. Your eyes looked tired. No, not tired, drained, exhausted, worn. Even your hair was longer than it should have been, tangled and heavy. The shape of your arms was harder and stronger from fighting the same fight over. Your legs were leaner from running again and again and again. All the gentleness he so loved seemed to have been leeched from your body.
You watched a film reel of emotion dance over Bucky’s face. First horror that he hadn’t seen it before. Then anger for the danger he had failed to protect you from. Then a deep sadness for the tenderness, the playfulness you’d lost – he’d lost. In a breath, he understood why you wouldn’t be consoled. It wasn’t only grief for Loki, it was grief for the person you’d lost. If you could go this far, were you still the same?
“What have you done?” the words slipped out in a heart-broken whisper before he could catch them. They broke across your skin like the sting of sleet and you turned to him with eyes wide, brimming, and desperate.
“I did what I had to!” you cried, grabbing both his hands in yours, clinging to him, begging him to understand, to see you through the carnage. “Don’t you see? It’s my turn now. I have to protect us, to save you. And I will re-write history until the end of time; until there’s nothing left of it to write, if I have to.”
“But you can’t, can you,” Strange’s voice seemed so far away. Yet in one sentence it crushed the dream you had been building. “You can’t save them all.”
“Yes I can,” your gaze never left Bucky’s, your eyes pleading through the hurricane at the gates. “I can. And I will. I w—I would call in every last one of you Avengers. I would demand an army, armies you can’t even dream of. I would rain hell. I’d try anything before I walked away from you.”
Bucky let out a short huff of breath, heavy and fraught. He was stunned by the fire you carried. In seconds he’d watched you turn into a falling star, burning across the sky, growing with anger and desperation until you were consumed.
He shook his head slowly, minutely while he grazed the weeks-old bruise on your chin. He wondered how many battles you’d fought now, how many hits you’d taken. He’d been meant to protect you. He wondered too, when that had changed.
“None of it will help. You’ve created a time loop. The rest of us are frozen until you break it,” Strange explained. “This isn’t your happy ending; it’s a moment between breaths.” You never broke eye contact with Bucky, begging him to understand, to fight with and for you. “You can’t outrun the future forever.”
Your eyes turned to molten steel just before your gaze snapped to him. Your voice was a blade dipped in poison. “You watch me! You watch me run. I am the stone keeper! I will run to the end of this universe and back if I have to. I will run until time gives up and crumbles into ash before I let him die! I will fight until the very last star burns out like a cinder under my heel.”
Bucky struggled to breathe. Watching you was like succumbing to a wildfire. All consuming and raging with grief, you directed all of that heat at Dr. Strange until you felt the cool glide of metal slip into your hand. Cold fingers eased between your own, pulling you back from the dark sky you burned against.
“Enough,” he breathed, just loud enough for you and you only. He stood quiet but certain as you turned back to him. “Enough.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You’ve given enough. You’ve done enough.” He traced a line down your cheek with the backs of his knuckles, gentler than a kiss, softer than a breath, even as you shattered under the new meaning he gave to your own words. “You have to stop this.”
You never even noticed the tears, as they streaked your skin. The tightness in your throat was a nuisance. But the crushing weight on your chest was unbearable, like being cleaved in two.
“I can’t,” you managed, sobbing as you spoke. “He would have your life but I can’t let you go. Haven’t they had enough from us?? I won’t let them take you.”
“I’m already gone,” he soothed, drawing you close until your forehead pressed to his, until you could see no one else, hear no one else. Only you and him. “This… time loop, buying me time… it’s only hurting you. And I can’t have that.”
A breath of a chuckle escaped through your tears.
“It’s making you something you’re not,” he continued. “You’re not a warrior. You’re a Seer. Warm as the sun; you see a cold hurt world and you can’t leave anyone to suffer in it. But this, what you’re doing, it isn’t compassion.”
“I know.”
“You’re holding the universe hostage for one life. And an old one. My number’s come up a few times already.”
You rolled your eyes. “I’m trying to save you.”
He chuckled and shook his head and yours, with foreheads still together. “That’s my job – the saving.” He swept a fresh tear from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Yours is to be you, no matter what. You’ll choose the right thing. You were made for more than this... this fight.”
You nodded, met his sure gaze and swallowed hard. “I don’t think I’m a very good stone-keeper.”
He pulled back and shook his head with a gentle curl to his lips. “You’re just scared.”
“No,” you disagreed. “I’ve been scared before. This is something else. I think my grandfather saw you, saw this coming. He told me you’d protect me and all this time I thought it was an instruction, but I was wrong. It was a warning.”
Bucky listened, and watched, his hand slipping over your skin, up your shoulder, cupping the back of your neck and stroking your hair. Holding on for as long as he could.
“In a single night he let me lose everything I ever loved, and in the same night he told me about you. I think he was warning me that it wasn’t over. That I’d love and lose more than I’d ever known.” You took a shaky breath and spoke with a tremble, “I was never meant to carry this stone for long, I can see that now. I’ve lost so much; I won’t lose any more. I’m a selfish stone-keeper, Bucky. I would let this entire planet crumble to dust before I let anything to happen to you. I have to find a way to end this.”
“So, what comes next?” he whispered, a life between breaths.
“I don’t know. I can’t see that far, but we’re in this together now, okay? We can choose for ourselves. We can choose to end this legacy of blood. As long as I carry this stone, I’m in danger, and the world is in danger of me,” you smiled ruefully. You’d proven your strength and the lengths you’d go. You’d seen Loki’s vision, seen half the universe eliminated and still chose this. Truly, you were a danger. “As long as I carry this stone, I will run to this fight. And as long as you are beholden to answer when they call, you will too. Neither of us asked for this but now it’s up to us.”
He took a deep breath. Your eyes were resolute, honest, while he looked like he might startle at a sneeze. He’d been ready to sacrifice, but not like this.
“I saw a future for us once, in a dream. I don’t know if we can still have that but I want it so badly.” You spoke with urgency and conviction, but he still looked so startled and conflicted. He’d been a soldier for the better half of a century and you stood with the power of time asking him, for once, not to be a hero.
“Bucky, I want to be where you are,” you pressed on. “I want to wake up slow in a place where we don’t have to worry about who’s behind us or what fight is ahead. I want to make garbage eggs with you, with real hot sauce not something we scavenged because we’re too afraid to open the front door. I want to take a walk with you where you’re not looking over your shoulder. I want to see you as happy and as unworried as I dreamed. We can have that. We can!” You shook his hands firmly. “We can make that choice. I’m choosing us, Bucky. I think… I think I finally see what that means. But you have to choose for yourself if you need to keep up this fight.”
His hand gently curled over yours, not holding on, not demanding, not promising, only pressing you closer for this moment you had. For a moment between breaths, he had everything. Even if the next breath ended it all.
Too quickly, your fingers slipped out of his, and you stood before Dr. Strange, talking in surreptitious murmurs. Furtive glances down at the stone hanging about your neck had the breath catching in his throat.
This had been his mission. You were his mission. You were more, and he hated this new plan and his role in it, but his protests had been dismissed. If it were up to him, absolutely nothing would entice him to put you in such danger. He knew now that you were powerful, more than him realistically, but still. It angered and saddened him to think you’d already been making yourself so vulnerable on your own. Over and over and over.
At least now, he supposed, he had some control. It was his only solace as he notched the long-range rifle into the v he’d cut into a pine bough twenty feet high. He could still smell the sharp scent of pine sap on his gloves from the work of it.
It would require every ounce of self-control to follow through. The weapon was only a rip-cord. It had been a mercy, really, to allow him a scope with which to watch over you. He could not – under any circumstances – give away his position or it would all be over and they’d be right be right back where they were with you frantically trying to undo time, re-stitch his wounds, and rewrite the future. Loki couldn’t know his position.
Plan A: he only watched and waited, hating every second. Plan B: he made a kill shot and they tried again.
With endlessly rehearsed steps you moved toward the cabin’s malfunctioning generator. You climbed over the downed tree, just as before, just as always. You recited the same words like a spell to conjure the trickster god. Calling to Bucky who, just this once, would make no answer. The black dagger flew by your head as you feigned tripping. Your boots were tied tight this time. You were prepared.
“Loki,” you breathed, drawing him forth from the shadows like a sleeping memory hidden in the deep.
“Stone-keeper. I’d hoped to keep this between the two of us,” he looked irritated, but you didn’t startle, not this time.
“So do I,” you snarled and clutched the amulet in a tight fist close to your body.
A wicked smile dragged over his features. It curled his lips, lit his eyes, and drew his shoulders forward. He looked more like a prowling cat than a man as he matched each step you took away from him. When finally, you turned at a full sprint into the cold damp woods, he stood for a moment, surprised, before a laugh bubbled up his throat.
Wet musty earth erupted beside you, spraying dark rain over your head as you ducked beneath the shelter of an ancient pine. Chest heaving, lungs burning, you hazarded a look over your shoulder. While you ran, he strolled, letting the scepter do the heavy lifting. Another streak of blue electrified fire ripped through the trees sending splinters and cosmic energy out in ripples.
His laughter began to echo as you skidded to a stop. The fear momentarily outpaced reason as your boots crunched onto the first few steps of frozen lake. The memory of your dream clawed at your brain like hoarfrost but you pressed on.
The water had begun to seep up over the ice in gurgles and your feet were wet and cold. Each step made a crude sloshing noise that matched the untethered rushing of blood in your ears. Fifty feet out, you slid onto your knees when the hard crystals beneath you began to creak and moan.
“You’re rather a difficult person to pin down,” Loki called out over the lake, voice calm and clear as a bell as he stepped onto the ice.
You didn’t speak. Fear and anger beat too strong for words. The ice shifted beneath you like a heaving boat as he moved closer with heavy, unrelenting strides.
“You’re right. Enough small talk. We’ve waited for this moment long enough, you and I,” the grin remained.
“You,” your voice came out an acrid hiss, “have destroyed everything I have ever loved.”
His tongue clicked against his teeth before an exaggerated frown curdled his features in mockery of you. “Well, that’s not quite true, is it? Not yet anyway.” He glanced purposefully up the hill in the direction you knew Bucky waited patiently with a rifle trained expertly on this spot, where you promised to be.
From his perch in the tall pine, Bucky’s jaw clenched. He could hear nothing, but he caught a flash of grinning white teeth as Loki looked up the hill. Too close to be coincidence. He considered firing; he’d always liked Plan B better anyway.
There was nothing more in this world that Bucky wanted than to gently squeeze the trigger. He was physically itching to do it, to pluck this murderous thorn from his side. But instead, he waited, because that’s what Strange told him he must do to keep you safe.
“Now, give me the stone and I won’t be forced to take any more from you.”
“It won’t help,” you almost laughed your answer back at Loki. “I know what you’re so afraid of, and it won’t be enough.”
“You know nothing,” Loki snapped, accustomed to being the smartest in the room. “You simple Midgardians have no idea what lies past your own noses. You least of all, cowering in the woods with the power to unwind time. You could remake the universe to your liking but you tremble at your own gift.”
“It won’t stop Thanos.”
For the first time, Loki stopped his slow progression forward. He eyed you carefully. “Did the sorcerer tell you this?”
You laughed, sharp and bitter. “Now it’s you who cannot see. This is not the first time we’ve met, Asgardian. I have been on this very spot, with you, more times than I can count.”
“Then the odds must be in my favor.” He stepped forward again. A wicked smirk made him seem bolder, wilder, more dangerous.
“No. You see, I’ve had the luxury of time. Of learning. I’ve seen you murder me and everyone I love,” your eyes instinctively glanced up the hill toward Bucky. “Over and over and over. And while those realities might not exist anymore, they were real. I haven’t forgotten and I know you.”
“And you expect me to grovel now, stone-keeper? You think you’ve out-witted me and you want me to what? To beg your forgiveness and weep? Tell you that I didn’t mean to do any of it?” Loki slid forward, gilded boots scraping against the ever-thinning surface of the lake. Suddenly the silver scepter smashed hard against the ice. Cold water bubbled up like a spring. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do to prevent Thanos from taking that stone. And if I must, I will slaughter you like I did your grandfather. You too will die in this barren, frozen waste. Completely alone.”
“No, I won’t. But I have seen you die,” you hazarded a step toward him, rage and hate building beneath your skin, deep in your muscles, down to the bone. “You will claw and gasp for even your very last breath in the emptiness of space. It won’t be my hand around your throat, but it will be the reality I chose for you. Remember that, Loki Odinson.”
His grin widened as heavy strides closed in on your resolute form. “You will decide nothing. I know true power when I see it, and you have none.”
When a splinter in the ice creaked to a waiting cavern between your muddy boots and his golden ones, you froze. He, however, lunged forward with incredible speed, as if there were lightning in his veins instead of ice. A tight fist closed over your wrist and he tore the talisman from your neck.
The chain bit into your skin and burned as it snapped. This was nothing to the fire in his Loki's clear blue eyes as he held the hurriedly welded replica in a trembling palm. This pain was nothing to the pressure he now applied to your wrist, overcome with frustration. Finally his fist closed over the painted stone and the entire trinket crumbled to pieces.
Your smirk faded when he slammed the palm of his hand against your forehead.
You gasped as a memory formed, unbidden, at least by you. The golden shimmering vision unfolded clear as the moment it happened, the moment you lifted the talisman off your neck for the first time since you’d opened the package from your grandfather on that fateful day so long ago. Loki shared in your memory now, watching intently as you passed the Eye of Agamotto, the time stone, into the hands of Stephen Strange.
“You fool.” A bitter laugh pushed through Loki’s sharp nose. “You are an ancient stone-keeper, it was your inheritance and legacy, and you passed such a treasure to a second-rate sorcerer! To a conjurer of-of-of cheap tricks and…” he finally lifted scowling eyes when he heard a sharp crack at his feet.
Bucky’s rifle had carved a blistering hole in the freshly formed ice between you and Loki. The second crack was deeper, solid and echoing. This time it was the lake itself. The chasm between you erupted, spilling water over the surface and soaking your feet.
It was just like your dream, and your feet moved, unbidden, pedaling backward. But Loki followed at the unrelenting pace of a predator.
“Do you think I fear the cold?!” he shouted to you and Bucky and anyone else who might hear. “You ignorant child. I am born of it.” He knelt down, forest green cloak pooling at his feet and pressed one bare palm to the ice. While your face morphed into cold shock, his grin widened as the cold seeped into his skin, turning it a pale, unearthly shade of blue. As he rose again, the color spread higher like ink in water until he was covered in it. “But you were born with tender, warm-blooded Midgardian flesh. Such paltry armor.”
With a single downward thrust he smashed the scepter into the ice with all his might, sending a burst of blue over the surface. The chasm between you yawned wide to swallow you both. Water, glacial cold, crawled up your calves as the ice heaved beneath your feet and you slid towards the opening.
You swallowed the fear, and glanced toward the shore, to where Bucky now stood, shouting. This was not fear, though. You knew fear. Knew it when a dark shadowy dagger had ripped the life from Bucky before your eyes.
No, this was not fear, this was consequence. Finally. The tears sprang forth with a laugh as hope bloomed in your chest. Hope for life, even if not your own. Hope for a future, for a man you saved over and over. Hope that these Avengers whose protection you once sought, would return the salvation you now gave to one of their own.
It came in a rush of golden, glimmering light. A bright orange glow spinning below the delicate wet ice at Loki’s feet. Within the ring, deep grey clouds rolled with lightning. It thundered angry and sharp as the ice burst open with a groan.
Loki fell into the thundering portal, to his brother, to Asgard and imprisonment. You, however, a few feet away, fell into a world so cold your lungs seized, your throat closed, and your eyes bulged. You couldn’t have taken a breath if you’d wanted to. The water slipped higher and higher until you were submerged, skin somehow simultaneously prickling with cold, and numb with it.
The broken ice shifted overhead until you couldn’t see the surface. Your fists slammed against the ice, begging for an opening that didn’t exist. As your lungs heaved, you realized the deal you’d made…
“You should keep it,” you’d admitted then. “But only if he lives.”
Dr. Strange had agreed, had vanished to find a prison worthy of a god from space. And your life? You’d wielded the power of an infinity stone for uncounted days. It hadn’t even occurred to you that you’d need to guarantee your own safety.
It was merciful then that the cold would cloud your brain before the oxygen starved your lungs and your limbs. Just as you allowed the darkness to close over you, to calm you, a silver fist crashed through the ice and plunged into the water, impervious to the cold.
Light streamed down around the glimmering metal plates as he reached for you. Too cold and hypoxic to grasp his outstretched hand, you drifted, watching with clouded eyes and heavy limbs. He closed a tight fist around the cloth at your throat and hoisted you, blinking, clinging in gasping breaths to consciousness.
Part 22 (epilogue) >>
#bucky x reader#bucky barnes#bucky x reader angst#bodyguard bucky#infinity stone bucky fanfic#avengers fanfic
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NaNoWriMo 2018: DAY SIX
Tracking: #sas does nanowrimo again, #sense8 hogwarts au
Date: Tuesday, November 6th.
Daily Word Count: 617
Total Word Count: 9,662
Stuff that Happened: Very long day with very little sleep and concentration. Not ideal. However, the day is now over, and I hung in there and made myself put down some words just because this is all NaNo’s about––building a consistent writing habit and such. So whoo!
Strategy: Tried just writing ANYTHING that came to mind. I did manage some, but overall it was a slow day.
Goal: Get some more sleep so I can maybe finish this section tomorrow and get started on the next one. MAYBE. Counting on weekends to catch up again.
Rough Draft Sneak Peek: Chapter 2, Section 3, Will’s POV
(It’s the best I can do with what I have so far, at least. I’m making it a bit shorter since I may post a bit more from Will’s section tomorrow after it’s all done.)
The trip from the barrier of platform nine-and-three quarters to the train was a fairly brief one, but Will and Diego took their time, waiting for Will’s dad to catch up.
Michael Gorski swung his prosthetic leg forward every other step, using a cane to help support his weight whenever he had to land on his metal foot. People looked on in awe and whispered to each other, pointing at the war hero with the pronounced limp. Michael was a Senior Auror, and he had been assigned to take over Moody’s task force after his death. He had been on call on the night of the Battle of Hogwarts, and it had been the last fight of his Auror career.
Under his father’s shadow, Will could tell he was being watched, too. His friend Diego reveled in the attention, though he tried to keep a straight face. Will, on the other hand, alternated between looking at his trolley and his feet. He fidgeted with the tip of his wand tucked in his sleeve as he pushed his luggages forward, ready to draw it and cast a spell at a moment’s notice. It was the one habit his father had drilled into him since he was a child, using a random branch as substitute when Will could not yet own a wand.
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I Can Do Book Review
I review books. I am a responsible adult who knows how deadlines work. Yeah. This is true. I do not get distracted by unrelated book binges, head colds, work, lunch, or my cats. I definitely read all the ARCs publishers let me look at and then review them before they’re published.
Yup. I definitely do that. I mean, I’m not lazy or easily distracted. Definitely not. I mean, I can read more than one book at a time! I can multitask.
Uh...
I mean.
City of Broken Magic by Mirah Bolender!
So I told myself I’d be done with City of Broken Magic before it came out, have a clever review written beforehand, post it to tumblr and momentarily feel like I have some vague purpose in life other than getting up stupidly early to spend half my day in traffic and the other half doing work that has nothing to do with my Master’s degree.
You’d be surprised how often I tell myself this.
But I’m a slow reader. I’m easily distracted. I’m working on roughly 12 different projects at once. I was going to do NaNoWriMo! Yeah I gave that up on November 1. I’m roughly...38,041 words behind on my NaNo goal.
But you know there’s stuff to do like shopping and sitting and staring at the TV and looking at other books I want to read and attempting to crochet while left-handed and paying attention to the cat then paying attention to the dog when he gets jealous of the cat...
Also, Thanksgiving.
Also, out of nowhere I woke up with a terrible head cold. So basically
Wait, where was I?
Oh yeah, City of Broken Magic.
So the city of Amicae is built with a Minas Tirith-like tier system and exists in a world that seems an awful lot like Studio Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle, complete with blob-slime-monsters called “infestations” that happen if you don’t keep your amulet plugged in or...something. I’m not 100% certain how the whole magic-infestation-system works here, but, to be fair, neither do any of the characters, so there’s that.
Anyway, it’s hard to pinpoint the time period Amicae is supposed to be reminiscent of - the city has trolleys, phones, radios, but is also very down with enforcing traditional gender roles for men and women. Also, there’s the foxtrot, a dance that came about in the 1910s, so...anyway I just started imagining Amicae as being if Studio Ghibli made Howl’s Moving Castle but with Minas Tirith.
If it sounds like I’m repeating myself, it’s because my brain is full of snot.
Anyway. So, our heroine, Laura Kramer, is a “sweeper” in Amicae: a person who deals with infestations of these magical blob Studio Ghibli monsters.
Laura is one of only two sweepers in the whole of Amicae - it’s just her, and her prickliest of the prickly pears, Clae Sinclair. Clae (pronounced Cly, and not Clay like I assumed for the first 20 or so pages) was once part of a whole family of sweepers - only, being a sweeper is a dangerous job, most of Clae’s apprentices have been killed on the job, and the higher-ups of Amicae are so desperate to avoid acknowledging the magic-blob-monster infestations that they’ve provided the sweeper department with almost no support. As a result, the sweepers have dwindled to literally just Clae and Laura. While dealing with a magical infestation at the mansion of a rich douchebag, Clae liberates one of the household servants, Okane, who, as it turns out, is a magi - no, he didn’t sell his watch to get a comb for his wife and his wife didn’t sell her hair to get him a watch chain, coordinate your Christmas gift-giving, people - a magi is someone who has more magic to them than normal people. Magi have, of course, been treated like shit throughout history, so most of them hide who they are, and sometimes rich douchebags will keep them in their houses as slaves, because they’re rich douchebags.
Anyway, Okane has the ability to sense infestations, but so far as sweeper training goes, he’s really, really bad at it.
So while Amicae is hell-bent on avoiding the infestation problem, Clae has been fighting to get more recognition for his department, Laura is stuck between societal expectations from her as a woman vs what Clae says is a natural talent for sweeping, and Okane is slowly but surely overcoming a lifetime of enslavement and abuse to become a somewhat adequate sweeper.
But while all this is going down, there’s a massive infestation taking root in Amicae. Like, supermassive. Like, No-Face from Spirited Away after he ate all that food levels of massive.
So massive that it could destroy the whole city and kill everyone in it.
And the only people left to deal with it are Clae, Laura and Okane.
I struggled with City of Broken Magic - I really liked the characters, especially prickly-pear Clae, but the worldbuilding seemed a bit shaky - as City is first in an intended series, we may have more to learn about the world around it, but much of this first book felt like the world was being built as the story was written. I could get over that, though, because I wanted to know more about Laura, Okane and Clae. To add more to the Ghibli-esque feel of the story, there are a lot of Japanese-inspired terms for the monsters. Okane’s name is mentioned, in-story, to mean “money” - which is does in Japanese (お金 , it’s considered the more polite form for “money” - for someone who spent four years learning Japanese, I’ve retained...uh...practically none of it).
So, to make a long story short: I really liked the characters. I want to know what happens to them. I can ignore some of the glitches in worldbuilding because I actually do want to know what will happen next to the Amicae Sweepers.
Me, right now:
RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who thinks characters > worldbuilding
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who thinks worldbuilding > characters, anyone who developed a terrible head cold the day after this book came out.
RATING: 3.75/5
GHIBLI RATING:
RELEASE DATE: November 20, 2018, so...Tuesday. I’m only a few days late!
ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR SEQUEL: Lhotse
#city of broken magic#mirah bolender#chronicles of amicae#sci-fi/fantasy#book review#sweepers#studio ghibli#howl's moving castle#magic#minas tirith
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NotquitesurewhereIwasgoingwiththis.
I'm a lazy fucker. I really am. I keep meaning to update this damned thing and yet once again I find myself off doing other things, like saving the world from blood-sucking transvestite wombats or enabling tiny midgets (sorry, the vertically challenged) to finally cast off their insecurities by smothering themselves in a mixture of jam and gecko faeces while they parade around in high heels shouting about their human fucking rights. I also occasionally make toast. That's a lie. I don't do bread. Carbs innit.
The reality of course is that I have a job and the attention span of the aforementioned wombats (mmm, honey) plus I may or may not be a tad crazy so that whole prioritizing thing generally goes out the window. Much like the idea of that realistic Lego fire station I wanted when I was six. Thanks mom. It's not like you ruined my childhood or anything.
And speaking of moms and ruined childhoods. Inevitably we think of supermarkets. Now. I'm a bit of a weird fucker. I actually like shopping and that does include in supermarkets. I like patrolling through the aisles with one eye on my six looking for fresh deals to terminate and the gathering of so many types of food in one place always makes me think about exotic places in the world that I've never been and possibly may never go. It's just a weird thing, I find them usually relaxing. But as with all things. The cracks start to appear, the reality of what is and what may be starts to leak into my subconscious and for some God knows why reason I find myself slowly thinking about massacring everybody within a 20ft radius. Make that 25ft. That way we'll get the cunts perusing the salad aisle who casually glared at me for taking the last courgette. Fuck them and their vegetable racism.
So. Taking a deep breath. I'm going to be honest and cast aside my usual cloak of "Idontgiveafuckery" and be totally honest about what fucks me off about these places when I'm not walking around with the patience of a saint. Think of this as being like Gandhi when he finally slipped on a moist turd and decided "Fuck it, I'm nuking Jerusalem and banning fun" Because I'm pretty sure that's what happened.
Well first off. I generally like to walk around being a reasonably considerate cunt. Not overly considerate. Nobody likes a fucking walkover and since I spent pretty much the first 20 years of my life being a doormat to every fucking potato with a mouth, I have come to the conclusion that it isn't much fun. But honestly, I still don't feel the need to walk around like an utter dick bouncing into every other poor bastard who gets anywhere near me. Some people in supermarkets, on the other hand seem to either have their "twat" switch pushed all the way up to 11 or they have absolutely no fucking spatial awareness whatsoever.
*Splat* "...ran over some cunts foot. Oh well."
*Boom.* ".smashed into some old guy, shattering his fucking pelvis for good measure."
*Kablowey* "Oh look. I ran over an orphaned cat with aids and then ate her kittens. Take that you furry cunt."
I mean, who does that?
Seriously, use those fucking eye things occasionally and look around and don't hit every other peon on your mission to get some spaghetti to feed your equally dense bastard family with. In fact, just do us all a favour and stay home and fucking starve. That way I don't have to worry about you rear-ending my arsehole while I bend over staring into the cheese section thinking about whether I fancy Brie or fucking Gouda.
As well. On the issue of being an inconsiderate wank stain on humanity. Let's talk about some people who take their children to the supermarket. I get it...You have kids. Kids can be a pain in the fucking arse to sometimes control and I honestly have sympathy when I see some poor sod struggling with a months worth of shopping while contending with the demonspawn that vomitted forth from her battered and slightly sad vagina, moaning and crying because they've only got 184 fidget spinners and little bastard Timmy down the road has 185. I get it, you're trying to control the situation and the fact that you haven't marched them over to the salad section to drown the little fuckers in hummus shows an almost infinite amount of restraint. You are not the person who makes me angry.
What makes me angry is the fucktarded parents who walk around letting their kids run their trolleys into people, cause chaos and scream and yell with absolutely NO attempt to fucking control them whatsoever. I get that you think your little angel is special, and their way of expressing themselves is to break anything they touch and fucking run around demanding attention off poor old Doris, who just wants to spend her pension and not think too hard about how she's only got a year at most left on this fucking planet before she finally gets her wish and fucks off back to hell...but come on. At least try to pretend you give a shit! Imagine you're on fucking Facebook if that helps. Or that for every 10 minutes your brats spend not fucking up everyone elses day you'll get an extra gram of shite to shove up your nose and make the pain go away. For fucks sake just do something other than apathetically watching your offspring literally shit on everybody else around them with a moronic look on your face that suggests to me that perhaps a cull isn’t the worst idea ever.
Also, on the list is anybody who decides to look at stuff while dangling their trolley across the entire aisle as they wank off over the posh bacon. We get it. Posh bacon is nice and the correct cultural response is to elevate your genitals to eye height, imagine the smokey goodness and pop one off while trying hard to not think too much about how dirty your frying pan is. And by God do you like it dirty. But seriously, I'm okay with you DOING ALL OF THAT as long as you don't block me and every other poor desperate refuge of humanity while you're in fantasy land thinking about grease and love stains. I mean, for fucks sake. Maybe I want some bacon? Maybe I want to get past? Maybe I want to just pretend this entire fucking building doesn't exist and in fact I'm standing in the digestive tract of a mutant Giraffe with nano boots and an optical sensor where its fucking over-sized robot cock should be? Whatever thought going through my head is interupted by the fact that I can't get past you and your twatting bastard trolley. You do get plus points though when you finally snap back into reality, look around you at the half-dozen shoppers that are waiting to get past and say "ooooo sorry dearies" because we're British and fucking polite and shit. I mean. Manners cost nothing right?
Finally, on the list. People that take the last muffin. Now. As you know. I'm on a diet and technically don't eat muffins because apparently they blow up my uterus or whatever the fucking male equivalent is, but yes, just stop it. Either way. If I eyeball that shit from a fucking mile away and start walking towards it and at the last minute you swoop in with that ever so fucking smug look on your face and snatch that shit away from me and therefore my fucking destiny of eating my glazed trophy muffin, then you and I have a got a fucking problem and by God I WILL glare at you in an intense display of passive-aggression before picking up a donut instead and pumping my ever so moist and angry tears into it's gooey yet firm dough and eating the bastard with one bite before sobbing in the car park and dreaming of a life where myself and the muffin lived happily ever after.
Just don't do it alright. Drop the fucking muffin and walk away. Drop. The. Fucking. Muffin.
Unless it's got cherries or something in it. In which case feel free to take it and choke on that shit.
So yeah. Supermarkets are fun. Take your family. Just not your kids.
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trolley does nano days 10-17!
well. remember how a couple of posts ago i said that everything was going suspiciously well and i expected a disaster to strike? OH BOY did i predict the future with that sentence!!!!
after a delightful day 10, i then spent most of the evening/night of day 11 in hospital a&e. thankfully i didn't need surgery but i spent the next few days in a lot of pain and severely sleep-deprived, and then days 15 and 16 gradually getting better thanks to a bunch of medication and shitty christmas movies. that makes 5 whole days where i did no writing whatsoever, and my beautiful 3k headstart has been destroyed :'(
i'm feeling pretty much back to normal now, just slightly achey and bearing a giant bruise on my arm from badly-administered blood tests, and i have finally been able to have a proper work-and-nano day today with a count of 2193. my stats tell me it'll take 2108 words a day to catch up, so let us all manifest an absence of further medical issues and a smoother path to the end of the month!
#trolley does nano#nanowrimo#solstice#trolley writes#i do not have any sneaky tag spoilers to share today on account of the shitshow that has been the last week#instead i shall merely say a very merry fuck you very much to my appendix#thank you for listening!!
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good evening fellow humans, the bitch is back. or at least, human, singular, since i may well be speaking to myself after so long. it's been a solid year since i posted anything, during which time many things (good and bad) have occurred and many excuses have been made for me to avoid writing. but november is here and it is time to revive a very important tag: #trolley does nano.
i spent a vast amount of time on this blog talking about Solstice, and i'm gonna do it again. i have 160k words of juicy, melodramatic scorbus fic sitting in my drafts and i'll be damned if it doesn't see the light of day at some point in the next decade. so it's nanowrimo time, and i'm back to steamroller some words and hopefully inch my way towards a completed story.
we are doing the same deal as my previous nano adventures in 2020: a 50k goal, towards which only new solstice words count.
it's day one and i have already met the daily goal despite a busy day so i am feeling pretty smug and also quite sleepy. good job me. i shall attempt to update daily/weekly to hold myself accountable, so block the tag if you need!
maybe shoot me an ask if you are still vaguely interested in solstice as a concept and/or would like to berate me for showing up on your dash again. it's good to be home!
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trolley does nano days 4-9!
i forgot to update tumblr! but i am continuing to write words!
many words, in fact. nano is still going unsettlingly well and i am ending today with a daily word count of 2093 and a total word count of 16,868 - quite a bit above today's general goal of 15k. i had a really productive day on monday reworking a scene i already had a lot of detail for (seriously i worked on it for 3 straight hours on a monday night, who am i), which then put me in good stead for having a terrible sleep-deprived distracted day yesterday and only managing 935 words. today it has been back on form and it's reassuring to have a bit of a safety net. imagine if i actually finish early?? what a concept.
#trolley does nano#solstice#trolley writes#nanowrimo#gosh there are some juicy things i could put in the sneaky tag spoilers from the last few days#hmmm#albus finds an interesting but awkward place to sit#scorpius makes a faux pas which entertains others#someone cries#someone takes someone else's shirt off#someone returns for an explanation
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trolley does nano day 2!
i continue to do the thing! i managed a solid 2068 words today which puts me at 700 words over the day 2 goal, a very nice place to be. i had to thrash out some plot tangle in a voice note to @littlerose13writes - our standard way of talking through writing confusion, and one which has almost a 100% success rate.
all these words so far are on chapter 15 of solstice, which may well get completed tomorrow if i continue at this rate. that means i will soon have to start the daunting task of beginning chapter 16 and wading into the section of fic that i have planned a bit less of. may the nano gods be merciful 🙏
#trolley does nano#solstice#nanowrimo#trolley writes#do i need to resume the sneaky tag spoilers now i'm writing solstice again?#it may be hard for this chapter since it's basically one incredibly long conversation#but there is one notable part in today's section that involves a very significant not-talking part of these characters' interaction#💋
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trolley does nano day 29!
i have CAUGHT UP. no this is not a drill, no i am not hallucinating (i hope). i am ahead of the goal with one day to go!
my graph is beautiful, my word counts are beautiful
the actual writing? probably not beautiful. but it is words on a page and that is the goal! in one last attempt to thwart me on the penultimate day, the universe decided that i needed another illness to battle and i have come down with a grotty cold, but i refuse to be thwarted and have written another 2800 words today which puts me over that path to success line on the graph and gives me just 1315 measly little words to churn out tomorrow. child's play!
#trolley does nano#nanowrimo#solstice#trolley writes#tune in tomorrow for when i inevitably fall down the stairs and break a leg as soon as i get up and then all my writing time gets cancelled#it really would be the most appropriate ending to this chaotic hellscape of a month#HOWEVER#sneaky tag spoilers my goodness#there is violence#intrigue#homophobia#class warfare#fashion police#bitching#a chair gets knocked over also#poor chair#i need to go to sleep for eighteen hours
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trolley does nano days 22-28!
in the immortal words of miley cyrus and/or x factor winner joe mcelderry, i can almost seeeee it, that dream i'm dreeeeaming
look how close we are friends!! there are 2 days left of nano and my total is currently standing at 45,877 words. we did not come this far to fall at the final hurdle! i managed to carve out some writing time alongside work/various outings this weekend and i am so close to properly catching up after the great appendicitis flatline of week two. my health is still not 100% but i will be damned if i don't make it to 50k.
tomorrow will be short on free time, but on wednesday i should have the whole evening free to sprint to that glorious finish line. wish me luck and many, many words!!
#trolley does nano#nanowrimo#solstice#trolley writes#what sneaky tag spoilers can i provide#well#there have been hugs and kisses xoxo#someone has just made a dramatic entrance#albus is mentoring a new colleague#james and fran went on a lovely holiday#scorpius is a gossip#albus is very brave#and lots of plans are coming together#ooh it's juicy!!
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trolley does nano day 3!
this is going weirdly well? i am expecting disaster to strike at some point soon because i did another 2027 words today and i am now over a thousand words ahead of the goal. and it's only day 3??
look at my wildly inconsistent solstice total word count graph. look at it. what nonsense. i started tracking words in september 2019 (god this project is SO LONG) and you can see the giant spike in november 2020 from my previous nano efforts, and then the giant flat patch where i did basically nothing for a very long time. and now look at the end - another nano spike in progress! we really do love to see it. long may this motivation continue.
#solstice#trolley does nano#nanowrimo#trolley writes#sneaky tag spoilers#chapter 15 is FINISHED#and finally making sense#scorpius got very sleepy#and emotionally attached to a small piece of parchment#albus is now cleaning counters without magic#and making sure mary gets her tea
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trolley does nano days 18-21!
we are getting this show back on the road. bit by bit!
after the great hospital/pain/sleep deprivation flat of mid-month, my little graph is gradually making its way back towards the goal line. i ended up on another unfortunate no-writing day yesterday, but i managed 2400 on day 19 and 4300 (!!!) today. the next few days are going to be quite up and down in terms of available writing time, but by god i am determined to steamroller my way back towards that bloody line if my life* depends on it!
(*except not literally. this is fanfiction after all)
when it comes to my giant solstice planning/record spreadsheet, my wordcounts tab is looking delightful. my complete column for my chapters has only three 'N' for 'not started' chapters now, and look at that sea of 'Y' for 'yes'. 'P' is for 'partially complete' and yes chapter 11 haunts me. it needs a rework of the last third of the chapter and i simply cannot be bothered until the editing stage. my grand total wordcount is also rapidly approaching the 200k mark, which feels like a colossal milestone. it's a very odd but very good feeling to have the end of this story firmly in my sights!
#trolley does nano#nanowrimo#solstice#trolley writes#scorbus#ccsquad#hmm sneaky tag spoilers for the past couple of writing days#scorpius nearly kicks an owl in the face#albus is VERY BRAVE#lily and marion eat a lot of biscuits#fran continues to be most sensible quidditch player#oh and we do not stan blonde hair beatrice
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trolley does nano days 16 (?) to 29 - IT’S DONE!!!!!!
i have continuously forgotten to update here because work has been frantic and writing around a full-time job + a bunch of other crap has left me with zero brain power for other things however!!! 50,000 words have been written!!!!!!!
i got behind from the 20th due to real life nonsense plus general nano burnout, and i’ve kept writing consistently but stayed behind the goal every day until today! i finished yesterday on 45,775 but was determined to finish today - i set myself a tall order but i had no plans and thankfully my motivation stayed with me to churn out over 4k and finish NaNo 2020 with a whole day to spare!!
you can see the unevenness of my graph, but i’m just phenomenally excited that i actually managed to hit the goal 😭 earlier this week it was looking like i’d be close but just miss out and although that’s obviously still way more words than i would have had otherwise, i wanted to get that winner badge!! finishing today also means i have monday to thursday free to prep for the job interview i have on friday, so that’s another stress off my mind in knowing that i won’t have to worry about writing tomorrow 🙏
i was continuing work on an existing project so technically bending the rules of nano, but i only counted new words in november towards my nano count. my total word count is sitting at 147.5k, and the november spike on my graph is just extremely satisfying. i’ve completed three full chapters and two half chapters this month, meaning i’m (checks notes) almost three quarters through the whole thing! there’s still a good 50-60k to write if my predicted total stays accurate, but my plan for december is to give myself a break, get this job interview out of the way, and do some work on my planning spreadsheet so that i can move forward into ‘act three’ of the story (which starts at the end of my current chapter) knowing a bit more detail about what i need to be writing!
alrighty i’m gonna stop going on about this now but thank you for putting up with me!!! i did the thingggggggg!!!
#trolley does nano#nanowrimo#trolley writes#solstice#feels a bit silly to do sneaky tag spoilers given that i haven't updated for a fortnight and a LOT has happened since then#but uhhhh#cupboard shenanigans#an injury#a telling off#a boring meeting#a defeat#an argument#a rainy evening#a broken clock#and lots of dramaaaa#god i'm proud of myself
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trolley does nano day 2, aka let’s make the most of this energy while it’s still here! managed 2679 words today - almost exactly the same as yesterday - which is giving me an extremely satisfying headstart compared to the official goal:
the first 1600 word today were a slog, and i was massively distracted so those bits will probably need a very thorough edit, but motivation was boosted later in the evening (as so often seems to be the case) and i churned out another 900 words in about an hour before bed. i’m also loving the ridiculous spike the past two days has given me on my total word count graph for solstice (for scale, the long flat part is a full month long and covers my complete lack of writing between sept-oct)
most importantly though, i have finished chapter ten which means i have officially hit the halfway point of solstice!! but hey, didn’t you say yesterday that your total wordcount was over 100k? how can you be only halfway through, trolley, i hear you ask. well i’m afraid that here at trolleybitch/staircasescorpius productions we have no chill and if this thing comes in under 200k i will be truly shocked. now i’ve just got to get back into the scorpius pov mindset for chapter 11 and do this whole thing over again tomorrow ✌️
#trolley does nano#nanowrimo#solstice#trolley writes#today's hidden solstice tag spoilers#albus's decision is: snake#jesse is reluctant but makes an unprofessional choice#rafe is flirting with everyone#for a change#tomorrow things are going to get JUICY#eee
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