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lokifan) wrote2025-12-09 10:28 amRevealing our dark pasts
So there were six of us sitting at a round table in a restaurant, having just done a fun activity for
sodsta’s birthday. Me, sodsta, januarium, Januarium’s husband A, and our friends L and F. Importantly, L is a uni friend of A’s, and F is her partner. We’re definitely all big nerds together but I’m not sure even L knew that Januarium, Sodsta and I all met through Harry Potter fandom.We did, though. And we’re part of a group of 11 friends who all have a lightning bolt tattoo - mostly about two inches long, on the inside of our wrists. They were drawn for us originally by
lizardspots, because she wasn’t gonna get a tattoo herself but she was part of the group. None of us, I think - including the 4 or so of the group who are trans - regret the tattoos, because they’re a symbol of friendship rather than Potter in itself. Sooooo like two years ago, we’re sitting around having dinner and F starts excitedly talking about how she’s reading HP for the first time, and really enjoying them. She’s very offline and you can tell from how she’s talking that she has no idea about JKR’s fall off the deep end - and her girlfriend L, who 100% knows, is trans. So she’s happily talking, and L is looking at us in desperation, clearly hoping we’re not about to burst F’s bubble with any information about JKR’s transphobic activism. And I think we all silently decide that if L doesn’t wanna have that conversation, we won’t inflict it. But we’re all kinda like ‘hmm, interesting’ lol, not really engaging about HP, more drawing the conversation towards like reading in general. You’d have no idea any of us had even read those books.
And then F goes something like ‘and the red dragon, the - I can’t remember, the - ’
Januarium: the Norwegian Ridgeback?
F: ???
Sodsta: the Chinese Fireball, wasn’t it?
Me, joining in for the fun of it: or the Welsh Green?
F: …wait…
Januarium, sodsta and I: :look at each other, then slowly slide our wrists onto the table and pull back our sleeves to reveal our tattoos as one:
So we basically did a big reveal that we’d secretly been in a cult the whole time, lmao.
duskpeterson) wrote2025-12-08 11:39 amFIC: Emorian borderland (Tempestuous Tours)
The Emorian borderland, like the remainder of the borderland, is famed for the friendliness of its villagers. Despite that, do not be surprised if you are asked to pay for your room and board. Past foreign visitors have often taken advantage of the villagers in order to escape the high price of inns elsewhere in Southern Emor.
In the westernmost villages, you will find a blend of Emorian and Daxion life; though no bards live here, villagers can often be heard singing. As you travel further east, the singing will slowly cease, replaced by talk of blood-lineages and the seven gods and goddesses. You are now in the portion of the Emorian borderland that lies north of Koretia.
The borderland is the only part of Emor where vineyards can be found. Despite the relative coolness of the Emorian borderland, Emor's wines are among the best in the Three Lands. Especially popular is sweetened wild-berry wine (don't try the unsweetened variety unless you enjoy bitter drinks, which you probably do if you're Koretian) and wall-vine wine, made of a mild-tasting grape that grows only in the Emorian borderland.
Farming is also common here. Eastern mainlanders who farm will find much to interest them in these lands that have been plowed since ancient times.
Travelling east, you will eventually reach a crossroads. To travel on to Emor's capital, turn left.
[Translator's note: Hidden Blade shows life in an Emorian borderland village.]
duskpeterson) wrote2025-12-02 10:09 pmFIC: From Daxis to Emor (Tempestuous Tours)
North of Border Port lies a beach. Its serene beauty belies its bloody history.
It is here that, on half a dozen occasions, the Daxions beat back the Emorian armies that were intent on conquering Daxis. Finally frustrated by all these attacks over the border, the Daxions undertook an amazing task of landscaping, bringing the Western Ocean several miles inland from where it had lain before. Once the Daxions were finished, their border with Emor had narrowed to a brief passageway between a mountain and the deep Ocean.
Guarding the border has been exceedingly simple since then. Indeed, on the one occasion on which Daxions permitted Emorian soldiers to cross the border – in 976, when Daxis agreed to allow the Emorians to travel south in order to attack the Koretian capital from its naked back – it took so long for Emor's vanguard to pass over the border, one horse at a time, that a concerned Koretian borderlander was able to alert Koretia's council in the south to the coming attack. Alas, his message was not heeded, and Koretia fell to the Emorians.
The Daxions, on the other hand, have not been attacked from the north since they persuaded the Ocean to guard them. Their true vulnerability lies now to the east, which is why Daxis attempts to maintain good relations with Koretia these days.
Because the border is so narrow, you will likely have to wait several hours to cross the border into Emor, during the busy season. You may wish to spend your time exploring the caves nearby.
[Translator's note: That narrow little border causes some trouble for travellers in Breached Boundaries.]
firethesound) wrote2025-12-01 01:29 pmNovember Wrap-Up / December Goals
2025 Total Wordcount Goal : 78,583 / 100,000
2025 Total Writing Days : 100 / 365
NOVEMBER
I was expecting October to be the rough month and then November was supposed to be an easy glide to the end of the year, and somehow. SOMEHOW. That was not the case. Mostly due to being sick four times in four weeks, most recently with influenza A. I have not had the flu since 2017 and it was every bit as miserable as I remembered it being. I feel like I am only just beginning to crawl out from the crushing exhaustion that comes along with it. Ugh. Get your flu shots, y'all.
November Wrap-Up : I finished the month with 9,835 words which is fantastic considering everything else that's been going on. A total of 7 WIPs got words, with all words going into 7 Old Guard fics. I did not meet my goal of 20k.
DECEMBER
My biggest goal is just to get back into a writing routine again. I was doing really good at being consistent, and then last month I pretty much fell apart. I would love to get something small finished and posted, but I think that I need to just focus on the longer ones this month instead of getting sidetracked.
December Wordcount Goal : 15k and I still feel like this is going to be a little bit of a stretch, considering all the usual holiday madness that comes along with the month of December. But let's see how it goes! This will leave me a little bit short of my updated wordcount goal for the year, but I already met my original goal of 50k, so I'm all right with it.
December Fics to Focus On
☆ food truck au : and I know I'm not going to finish it this month, but I'd like to get through the next chapter at least, ideally the next two chapters. The next one ramps up the pining, the one after that has the confession of feels and the actual getting together, and that one's already mostly-written so should go fast if I can get through the next one. There's one conversation in particular that's holding me up. Estimated wordcount, 70k.
☆ horrorguard : Aiming to get this on finished and posted in early January, which is comfortably ahead of when the collection closes in February. I've done some work on this one, wordcount got bumped up just a smidge, but thankfully I have the whole story sketched out by now and it didn't spiral. I've got bits and pieces written from beginning to end, and now it's just a matter of filling in the gaps. Estimated wordcount, 15k.
duskpeterson) wrote2025-12-01 09:14 amUPDATE: Flight Through the Forest (The Motley Crew #2) + Thousand Nations early access fiction
ONLINE E-BOOK (html, epub, mobi, pdf, and xhtml)
Free at my website.
The Motley Crew (The Thousand Nations). When a young man named Dolan flees from the north, he faces danger on all sides. The Northern Army wants him back. The Empire of Emor wants him dead. His native homeland of Koretia may not want him at all. And his only protection is a man with motives that are mysterious and possibly deadly.
New installment:
2 | Flight Through the Forest. When you're fleeing from high danger, you have little choice in your companions.
EARLY ACCESS
My readers at Patreon and Ream get the first look at Twisted (The Thousand Nations: The Motley Crew side story). That short story will go into general release next month.
BLOG FICTION
Tempestuous Tours (Crossing Worlds: A Visitor's Guide to the Three Lands #2). A whirlwind tour of the sites in the Three Lands that are most steeped in history, culture, and the occasional pickpocket.
New installments:
NEWS & UPCOMING FICTION
As some of you already know, I posted last month's update two days after I tripped on an uneven sidewalk, banged my head three times against a metal fence, and acquired a concussion, not to mention a broken leg. (I consider that update to be one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.)
Unfortunately, the concussion delayed my completion of "Heir" and its accompanying Blood Vow omnibus, since putting together an omnibus requires a concentrated mind I just don't have at the moment. I've moved those two projects to next year's schedule. In their place, I've juggled my release schedule in order to offer my Ream and Patreon readers a side story this month from The Motley Crew.
The timing of my next e-book installment release is a little uncertain at the moment, since my recovering head is still at the stage where, every time I edit a story, I introduce more errors than I correct. However, I hold out hope that I'll be able to get a new e-book installment out in January. In the meantime, as you can see, I'm continuing to bring out blog fiction.
Fortunately, the concussion hasn't stopping me from writing stories. Among other things, I've finished composing Motley Mayhem, the third novel in the Thousand Nations series.