(no subject)

[spindle_ella]

I actually managed to get out about 1600 words last night (All Hail the SAD Lamp), so there's that. Unfortunately I had too much etsy work to do to keep the roll going this morning, but maybe I'll get it back. I'm not happy with my snippet; I can't seem to pace it right. I know I'm supposed to fix it later, but it's one of those things that bothers me.



The creature lost what little semblance of control it had and launched itself at Perdita. Karen barely saw her move before the roiling darkness snapped short in mid-air and was slammed down hard enough to rip an eldritch whimper from whatever it used for vocal chords.

"Fire in the hole!" Perdita shouted.

Cold hands grabbed Karen's shoulders and with a sickening, sideways lurch everything went dark. Blinking as she tried to get her bearings, it took her a moment to realise that Abby must have hauled her into the storage cupboard at high speed. "Get the fuck off me," she snarled.

"By all means, but before you go back out there I would consider that I'm staying put." He waited for an eldritch screech to taper off before adding, "Do you want to hide with the scary vampire, or set eyes on what the scary vampire is hiding from?"

As much as she didn't like it, he had a point. She took her hand off the door handle and scuttled back to sit next to him. "Speaking of what the big, scary vampire is hiding from, what possible protection is a cupboard door supposed to be?!"

"We can't see through it," he said. "You only saw some of Perdie's aspects, when she pulls her full manifestation into this reality it can be... a lot. Our little friend must be more powerful than we thought if she needs to go that far." There was a slew of very creative curses and a high-pitched eldritch screech from outside. "Or more freaked out."

A low hum of noise began, sonorous chanting in a voice that was far from human, sound that seemed to flicker in and out of reality the same way the sight of the creature had. Slowly the screeching dulled to keening and the chanted stopped.

"It's safe to come out now!"

Abby looked at Karen. "I say we give her a minute anyway."

"No argument here."

When they finally let themselves out of the cupboard, Perdita was in her human aspect again and outside the containment circle. Although her demeanor was composed she was a sweaty, goo-smeared mess, covered in scribbles and smudges of marker ink, but not nearly as damaged as Karen felt she should have been after going toe-to-toe with the seething ball of fractal tentacles that was still thrashing around behind her.

"Right, well," she said, flicking a piece of something glutinous off her arm, "I think we could both do with a break before I have another go."

"Any clue what it is yet?" Abby asked, handing her the bag of pills and bottle of tequila.

"You mean aside from the eldritch equivalent of a tea-cup yorkie in a roid-rage?" She poured the contents of the bag into her mouth and drained the entire bottle to wash them down, then set it on the nearest desk and wiped her face with the back of one hand. "I've never seen owt like it, not even out on the Edges."

"Did you just-" Karen tried to stop herself, but found she couldn't: "Did you just mix a dozen temazepam with a litre of tequila?"

"She makes a good point, Gramps, cough 'em up."

"Fine." He handed Perdita a pack of Benson & Hedges from his desk drawer. "Disgusting habit, but far be it from me to short you on your sacrificial offerings. Any other thoughts, before you depart to the smoking shelter?"

She paused with a cigarette already halfway to her mouth. "It's precious and I'm keeping it when you're done."

Comments

[notasupervillain]

This is delightful! You're so good at writing action - it's fast paced and evocative. I hadn't realized that Perdie had FORMS, and I'd never thought about the associations of containment circles with multiple forms, and also are Abby and Karen a THING?

[spindle_ella]

Eee, thank you! I never think I've got the pace right :( Yeah, Perdita has multiple aspects (in-universe it's common for deities), with a couple of faves. Abby and Karen aren't a thing; he realised at the last millisecond that she wouldn't know to not look at a chaos goddess in full aspect and dragged her to shelter (he tends to hide so that he's not tempted to look, no matter what whooshes past), and Karen stays in the cupboard because she's seen some of the things he isn't alarmed by, so after that initial reaction she'll take his judgment. Also, I've just realised I've skipped forwards a lot since the previous snippet: the supernatural cops are going by the names Neville Fox and Elfrida Griffin, Abby and Perdita have been called in as consultants, because the case is a weird one.

[notasupervillain]

You totally nailed the pacing, and I'm someone who gets bored really easily during action. So no worries there!

But, could the be a thing, because I kinda ship it?

Looking forward to seeing more!

[spindle_ella]

Regarding the pacing: Awesome, thank you!

Regarding the shipping: Oh, no, sorry! Abby's key to Karen getting her balance with regard to the supernatural stuff, since he's completely unrelateable to her at first and then becomes more and more a person, but he's taken for the foreseeable future. I mean, obviously you're welcome to ship it, but I don't intend on going that route.

[notasupervillain]

I GRUDGINGLY ACCEPT MY FATE

[spindle_ella]

I'M SORRY :( For what it's worth, I'm not planning on putting any romance in these books (maybe a bit of background stuff in future books, idk, but not Abby or Agent Fox).

[notasupervillain]

I respect that. Stories don't need romance! And it's important for fiction to feature people who have the physical capacity to be attracted to each other but are friends instead.

BUT YOU CAN'T STOP MY SHIPPING.

[spindle_ella]

LOL, shipping is like death and taxes ;)

[notasupervillain]

We've got libertarians to stop taxes and doctors to stop death. Who's fighting shipping?

[spindle_ella]

No idea, but there are complainers.

[spindle_ella]

NOOOO, don't go :(

[notasupervillain]

I dunno, this place isn't making me happy. I'm thinking if I can change the way I use it to change that. If I can find a way, I'll stick around. I like a lot of the people here! I really like some aspects of it. I dunno.

If you use other means of communication than dreamwidth, we could exchange info if you want to chat? I have WhatsApp and email and I'm strongly considering pillowfort and Mastodon.

[spindle_ella]

What's making you happy is most important - I just went from 'yay, writing buddy' to 'oh, noes :(' so I commented. I'm not good with chat-based social media, so I get it (I have huge periods where I can't werd; journal-based makes me feel like I can wait for lucidity where chat-based makes me feel anxious that I haven't replied yet). What is it that you're looking for here?

I am waiting to see where everyone moves to next. I think the hey-day of LJ type platforms is over, but I can't do twitter. Mastodon seems like twitter but with 500 characters per post, and apparently pillowfort is quiet, so I'm waiting to see if open-beta improves that.

[notasupervillain]

I miss forums. I miss moderated groups that talk amongst themselves. Here, conversations seem always one on one. And so often I end up getting a ton of the same answers to a post, and am I supposed to answer all of them? Or no response at all. Forums meant that commenters saw everyone else's posts and conversed, instead of a million individual chats because you have to click extra to see other people's comments.

Facebook groups are sort of like that, but under your real name, and they're organized by post time rather than topic. Forums, yo. So good. So extinct.

I could also go on about how much I dislike it when people try to sell me things based on friendship, but now that crowdfunding is a thing I don't think I'll ever escape that again. But the way that every conversation is individual makes it worse here than even Tumblr, I think.

I suppose Reddit might be closer to what I'm looking for. Given its reputation, I'm hesitant to try it, but what harm can a month do?

[spindle_ella]

I miss that too. I go on FFA these days (if you'd told me years ago that I would I'd have thought you were mad, but it seems like less of a hive of scum and villainy now, and also I can mostly stick to the writing/books threads because there are a lot of those. Added bonus is that if do I accidentally start wank I can just wander off and leave them to it).

I'll not get used to the crowdsourcing thing either. Once I've got finished novels up I'm going to have a Kofi link, but that's about it, and I'm not planning to remind people during conversations.

[notasupervillain]

Future Farmers of America??

(I googled the acronym. That's all I know about it.)

I'll miss you and some people here, but I've learned that the mode of social media determines what I can get out of it, not the people involved. The medium is the message?

[spindle_ella]

It's fail_fandomanon - Link to current post

There's a couple of wankstorms going on at the moment, particularly the one in the Fantastic Beasts thread, and a minor spat in 3-5 lines (that's one I post in regularly), but I just curate my own experience and back out of any that I don't like. Conversation can be a bit limited by how fast the post rolls over (it says 6500 comments, but in practice the last 500 are people trying to get the post to roll over. Can't throw stones as I do it myself). A lot of the threads are regular, and if you start one that people like it often becomes a regular. The place is about as close to forums as I've found these days.

No, I get that, but do let me know where you move to and I'll check it out. <3 DW is quieter than I'd like, but 'click and share' seems to be more popular than content creation nowadays.

[notasupervillain]

Lol, it's 4chan for fandoms! Amazing. The works is a strange and wonderful place.

I'll pick a new handle, and I'll let you know who/where I go when I get there :)

[spindle_ella]

A lot nicer than 4chan though, and there are plenty of origficcers about.

Hope you find what you're looking for <3

[notasupervillain]

Yes, definitely! That would be very close to that I want if it wasn't anon... I like getting to know people.

Thanks! I'll tell you how it turns out.

[spindle_ella]

Yeah, it took me a while to get used to it all being anon, but I found out there are some advantages (like, if you accidentally start an argument you can just bimble off and pretend you had nothing to do with it XD )

<3

[greghousesgf]

I like this a lot! Your dialogue is very snappy. :)

[spindle_ella]

Thank you! :D

[chez_jae]

"Do you want to hide with the scary vampire, or set eyes on what the scary vampire is hiding from?"

What an awesome line!

[spindle_ella]

Thank you!

[cornerofmadness]

I like it.

[spindle_ella]

Thank you!