Shakti rockstar moment where she's doing a song-magic in front of a crowd and she points at Locket like YOU. FINISH THE LYRIC IF YOU REALLY WANNA BE FRIENDS AGAIN.

And he does, badly, but he does, and the crowd is in synch w him.

La de da, making silly little memes of my OCs~

You can't see Shakti's hair curl in the photo, sad :(

Yes she has four arms, no she is not blushing because she has a crush on yucky Locket, she's just embarrassed.

Poor Ratty, he got yelled at :( he just wanted to make the most of his first time meeting another human of his general age. At least Blaire got to him before he tried that on a guy...

I know he's a dark god of immense knowledge, but how does Eventongue know what a podcast is o.O.

Story Idea

A book written in the future tense with the past/present tense framing device of someone having surreal prophetic dreams. Whether or not the protagonist understands them the readers don't, at least at first. After a while the dreams start to clock together, and piecing together what is actually going to happen and what it's about is the core mystery, everything finally clicking in the last chapter.

Like a murder mystery, but maybe not really about the murder and before it happens.

Blaire, Part 2

Daine and Blaire hit it off at once. He was young, like her, and strong and handsome. Most of the court were old and world-weary, he seemed almost childish by comparison. He was an exceptional swordsman, and had joined Occkadai (the god) for glory. They joked easily together, and he let her boss him around. Blaire was quickly infatuated.

More than anything about Dain (I don’t have to settle on a spelling if I dont want to!), what attracts her is the feeling of being wanted and looked up to. That image of herself she put together to cope, of the wise and motherly girl, is flattered by having someone to take care of. Being in charge of him makes her feel better about herself.

The god (I don’t know how i feel about Occkadai as a name, but i don’t want to keep calling him ‘the god’ :(.) is acting against this other, older one, and there’s also a younger goddess named Myranyah (I do like that name!) who’s also against him, but he doesn’t know that yet. They don’t leave for a good while, and Blair and Dain’s relationship grows steadily. (I don’t know where else to add this, so: they’re both 19 right now (Daine’s older). Ratter’s is unknown to him, but about 18-20. Locket is 17, Shakti is 11. We’ll get to them later.) Blaire doesn’t tell her mother, she doesn’t know how. She tells the sister she’s closest to, but is ruthlessly mocked, and almost convinced to stay back for how ridiculous the idea that she could make it out there is. Also, she says Dain’s only playing with her, and she’s an idiot if she thinks that’s ever working out. She leaves quietly, bumps into Dain, but dodges his questions. She’s fine!

She doesn’t say goodbye to her family when she goes.

It’s not the adventure she expected.

Really, she was only included because she was young, strongly built, and clever enough. The immortals in Occkadai's court don't get tired as much, but they are outnumbered by ancient - and very mortal - retainers, because it's been ages since O did anything. So she's stuck working as a cook in a caravan moving incredibly slowly with only Daine and eventually Ratter for company.

(I'll get into her relationship with Ratter later)

Anyway, she and Daine do not work out. Thanks to the mess of loneliness and neglect that was her childhood, she responds to any overture of companionship by digging her nails in and sticking there. She constantly worries - justifiably - that Daine doesn't actually love her, and like. She doesn't love him either, even though she's completely obsessed with him? She believes she should, as per her imagined self, she desperately wants that affection and security, she is attracted to him, seeing as he is an absolute sweetheart and a badass, but it's not as deep as she wants to believe. Daine is a well-balanced and self-sufficient guy, and he tends to resist her constant attempts to mother and patronize him.

O, as it turns out, is not a particularly good guy! Woulda thought! Even though she's not herself responsible for them, seeing the terrible things he does and makes Ratter and Daine - who are like, magically bound to him - do, makes her already pretty bad mental state worse.

She and Daine have a huge fight, she slaps him, he breaks up with her, she goes absolute bananas. As per the general age of the other people, it is decided that the cook has become a hysterical woman, and should be ignored. Somehow, Daine - at Ratter's begging, because she won't listen to him - finds it in him to forgive her bad girlfriend-ness, and they talk it out.

As they continue to work with O, she picks up every skill she can from the people they meet, most of whom are charmed by the witty young lady, the handsome man, and the gentle giant of a boy. She finds some hope in her ability to learn just so much random shit, which her boys assure her is cool. She also notices that the attacks of bad fortune, illness, and general bad... vibes, are coordinated, and the source is another god, Myranah.

Specifically, her retainer, Shakti. (who is NOT a girl, she's a monster!)

I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO WRITE THIS SHIT.

FOR SO FUCKING LONG

So, Blaire.

As a young girl, she worked in a great lord’s keep, cleaning floors and dishes. Her mother was a minor cook in the kitchens, and worked long hours to keep her debts paid and her children fed. Blaire was often reminded of how unwanted she was, an extra mouth to feed. The servants and clerks and caretakers all played a vicious game of petty politics, and a young girl with a tendency towards daydreaming found herself permanently alienated.

Hungry for love and attention, for admiration that never came, she made up a version of herself in her head – a wise and motherly figure, who dealt with every problem with a gentle (and beautiful, always beautiful) smile. This was completely fake, of course. Inwardly, Blaire was just a girl who’d had to grow up too fast, and as such had never grown up properly.

She was smart, though. She was eager to help anyone around the keep, even when she knew she was being used, so she quickly learnt many things. She learnt how to arrange books, the care of horses, the usage of tools, bits and pieces of many different languages from the many strange visitors who came to the keep. She also learnt wood-carving and (later in life) woodcut painting. Yet no matter what she did, no matter how she smiled or joked, she could not learn how to win her sibling’s respect or her mother’s love.

One day, after a terrible flood in a nearby town, the keep was made to host many strangers. They had many different tongues, colours and mannerisms, but all claimed to be part of a court. No word of their visit must leave the keep, the master said. He called his scholars to his study and barricaded the door. One of these was a clerk, a teacher of Blaire’s, and he called her to fetch scrolls and refreshments.

When she entered, she saw a man sitting at the place of honour, even above the lord of the house. He was bigger and stranger, more richly dressed and just more than any of his court. She knew she hadn’t seen him enter the keep. There was a discussion being held, a debate over the position of certain processions, places of demonic sightings and so on. When a question was asked to a scholar who wasn’t there, they erupted in argument, every man claiming his own point of view to be absolute, trying to drown out the others. Blaire spoke up, despite intending to hide in plain sight against the wall, because she just couldn't keep her mouth shut when hearing something completely factually incorrect. The stranger held his hand for silence and bid her speak on. She explained the problem with her elders’ arguments and her own thought, something simple and intelligent, and the man smiled. The thought was worth consideration, he said, especially at a time of upheaval as this. His court could use fresh blood like her.

The man was a god.

(Or to be more correct, a Young Deathless)

His own land had been put to famine and flood by the rage of another god, a sliver of which had been felt by this one as he escaped. With his court, he had left, and he now wanted to get it back. Her old master was a patron of many student of the occult, who knew as much about magic as any mortal who did not risk monstrosity. In his court, she would find worthy companions, adventure, learning. In their victories, (so they said) she would find glory and plunder. In the tales told by the lore-wise, she would find a place.

(And in defeat, capture or disloyalty, she would find the most literal hell.)

She begged some time, and went down. Her mother still wanted nothing to do with her. Her friends still wanted only to use her. But from the moment the meeting adjourned (and nobody found any sign of the god, it seemed), the court sought her out.

In that court, there was a young man named Dane.

~To be continued~

Hey, I wrote something!

“You came to me. You wanna die?” “Hell no.” He breathed. “But I can’t stop you.” A young woman confronts a murderer. A young man begs help from an old friend.

This is a little out-of-context confrontation between Locket, Emma Bride, the former's ego, the latter's grief, and a little murder committed years ago.

amoung

how

There is a point in the story where the main 4 are dragged into a dreamscape-type world and separated. As they make their way back towards each other, the dark wilderness around them provides them with weapons/tools which each reference their place in the dynamic. These tools also don't quite fit comfortably, showing the issues with the places they've made.

Ratter has a sword, of course. He finds it stuck into the road, waiting for him. However, the handle is too small for his hand, because he's been growing out of the life of killing monsters he's been used to since he was a child, and started wanting more.

Shakti has a flaming torch with fine gold work, showing that she is the gang's princess character, something to inspire and amuse them and push them to fight on. However, it burns so high and hot, and she can't control it's flames. Her passion and teenagerness gives her strength, and the pain she's been though pushes her forward, but she can't always direct herself, and that energy tends to burn her.

Locket has a shield, but a heavy one with sharp edges that cut into him. He tries his best to keep the others in line and protect them, but his way of doing those is scoldings and austerity, and his insistence on being So Fucking Strict with all of them and himself and never letting anything go and refusing himself anything he really really wants hurts him and is tough on him. He's constantly tempted to let it go, but simultaneously too afraid to.

Blair finds many weapons, in many odd places others would not look. She recognizes a crooked sword from a normal branch or arrows from reeds or a longsword hidden behind bricks, and she makes a rope from bark to carry them all. She's desperate to be of use, so that she can be sure that she won't left behind. Eventually, though, she gives up on those unwieldy, badly-made weapons, like she gave up on her aspirations of being the Mom Friend or an authority figure or like, Daine's gf, and she starts gathering sharp stones and edible-looking plants instead, showing her resourcefulness and her knowledge of everyday things that the others love her for.

Ok, this is just for me to remember which of my characters is which:

Blair - aspiring mom friend

Locket - stiff as a ruler

Ratter - the Bitch

Daine - knight

Shakti - singer

Character timeee... god I'm glad nobody follows this blog.

Setting

Roads of Monsters takes place in a world - or several worlds - which is broken into fragments, each it's own miniature planet/dimension, each different. Moving between them is possible during great (and RARE) natural calamities, sometimes triggered intentionally by the gods to bring mortals over form one to another. While people can survive in a world that is not their own, belongings cannot (neither can monsters. A god born in one world can't enter another where it is unwelcome.). Over a short period of time, everything from stone to metal disintegrates. Additionally, amnesia and dissociation will start to set in over time.

The physical size of a world is inversely proportional to its population. There is one world (E and C's homeworld) which has seas, vast mountain ranges, monsters everywhere, and nothing more than some hamlets. There's another (from where A is) which is just one huge city, population 10mil, cosmopolitan as can be. If the humans are killed en masse, space expands - resulting in one case in a ruined medieval castle acres wide.

There is an 'underworld' of monsters that spans all the worlds, as does 'imaginary space', a sort of border area.

Magic is the prerogative of monsters and gods, humans can only use magical items (a book of spells where pages can be ripped off to trigger the spell; potions; etc). Demigods and demimons can do it too.

If the bureaucracy of heaven demands it, whole worlds can be culled at the gods' whim. If a world is dying, time itself begins to unravel, the past and future mixing into the present. A dying world brings down the ones around it too.

Monsters are eldritch and do not follow human morality or psychology. Some of them are very animalistic, and many are malicious. They reproduce through rituals and magic. Most people consider them to be mindless or demonic, but they can be good too. Aesthetic wise... soulsborne, I'm ripping off soulsborne. They are more powerful than humans, usually, but very rare, and as likely to be fucked around with by the gods as anyone.

Well. My brain just vomited up a brand new story idea (in the middle of exams! During Nanowrimo!) so here goes.

Overarching tag is #roads of monsters

The main characters are, let's say, A, B, C, D and E. Actually I've decided D's name is Dane. More info on them will be up in future posts.

A shapeshifter character who uses her powers... to make herself various types of ridiculously busty hot woman. She's over the top and campy, and the only character who is given the anime-waifu treatment.

This helps in disguising her as well, as people remember her dramatics so well that they never give a second thought to her as a plain, unassuming passerby. Also, they are so distracted by the tits to remember, say, her bone structure or hair colour, so even if she is caught, anyone who doesn't know she's a shapeshifter will never recognize her.

A character who has the power to cast spells (or something) with song, so she, as a preteen, is pulled into the music industry as a child. She's made to sing cutesy, happy pop and fit a kind of pure-preteen-as-imagined-by-moe-anime image. Maybe powers are accepted and known in this world, or maybe they just feel powerful Good Vibes when she does, but she's stuck making everyone else happy, while all she wants to do, like every 13-year-old ever, is scream Fall Out Boy-adjacent lyrics at the top of her lungs. Tough luck, kiddo.

Just like her good-vibesy songs can bring peace, good luck and strength to those who hear them, her angry edgy songs can work as combat or curses. This comes in handy eventually as she becomes embroiled in The Plot

Hey there!

You know how sometimes you're minding your own business when a concept, a plot, or an entire family tree of OCs that would take a ten-book series or a three-year-long show to properly represent just kick down the door to your brain and plant themselves on the carpet?

This is a blog where I babble about story ideas I've had because - while it's definitely a golden rule - 'Show, don't tell' is hard to follow, and takes a lot of effort. Plus I'm lazy and rarely actually write any of my ideas.

Stuff that's going to be on here:

Fanfic outlines

Original short story outlines

Skeletons of long fics/stories

OCs from any of the above

Character dynamics and ideas (may or may not be from the above)

Entire oneshots (maybe?) in a low-effort, tell-not-show way

Literal daydreams

Links to my fanfics

My main blog is @no-nekos-pls and my ao3 is thunkdt.

He/She/It (Agender); Bisexual; not american

Uhhh... bye? Love and kisses?