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Post by Brownie on Apr 27, 2020 2:04:45 GMT -5
[[ A short from the world of Siva. I put this along with a poll on ffnet. Yall can have a say in this if you would like as well. I have like, 4-5 chapters of Tempest/Willow magic training arc plotted. I love to slow down and worldbuild, but this also seems like a bit of an excessive detour from the plotline. Would yall think its worth to worldbuild/training arc or should I do maybe 1-2 intermittent scenes of growth and then time skip to when they're all grown up and the plot begins? I really feel like its bad writing to slow the pace so much but I'm totally down to do so for the fantasy worldbuild opportunities lmao. I ask ffnet cuz they're not here for fantasy (though I guess everyone who reads must be to some extent) and idk I'm just torn so. vote. and short for your pleasure. enjoy my suffering through present tense ]]
. . .
Waiting is so much more painful when all the outcomes fill her with dread. Either the vanguard will manage to hold the lines and she will have to spend another night worrying over Day, or they will be forced to retreat to Eridon’s walls, leaving everyone who remained outside to die. And the absolute worst, where the nameless shadows appear at their walls, the vanguard consumed. That line catches in her mind, snagging endlessly as the hours tick by. It is a weight, pulling the air from her, leaving her with black spots in her eyes and gasping to breathe.
Mira is unlucky that her job doesn’t require much thought. She is a messenger, taking notes from one side of the camp to the other, back through the company’s entourage and supply chain all the way across the walls to where scouts and mages lurk in wait. She watches her paws when she’s upon the walls, careful of her precarious footing and even more precarious grasp on hope. The longer she refuses to watch the horizon, the longer she can pretend that Day is waiting for her at the end of the deliveries. She can pretend she will see his yellow eyes sparkling from under the shadows of the stone wall; she can imagine Day standing from where he had waited for her, a pair of sparrows under his claws; she can see the joy in his face, the way it lights him up from the inside so wonderfully--
Suddenly she is on the ground, a sharp pain in her shoulder, the notes from her pack fluttering down the street like snowflakes, or perhaps butterflies. “Oh of all the maggot ridden, poison pocked, carrion food,” she swears, dropping her pack to retrieve the messages. A black-and-white patched she-cat stops to help, having seen Mira fall. “Thanks,” Mira says as she shrugs back on the pack.
“Wait.” The she-cat touches Mira’s shoulder with her nose. A weak lavender haze settles on Mira’s fur, the skin beneath tingling and itching as the scrape knits closed. “It’s not much for the pain, but it should stop it from bleeding.”
“So far from the core,” Mira says in a low growl, anger and fear making her pin her ears back as she takes a step away.
The black-and-white she-cat follows, ducking in close with a smile, oblivious to Mira’s unease as she continues. “Oh, it’s nothing! You’re with the vanguard, yes?” Mira can only nod, the vanguard’s sigil of three dark clawstrikes plain on her pack for all to see. “Great! I’m Talyia.” She pauses, looks up and down the street as if most of the Svans that lived there hadn’t moved closer to the core seasons ago. Talyia brings herself closer --so close Mira freezes-- and drops her voice into a stage whisper, “I’m Umi’s mage.” With that, Talyia steps back out of Mira’s space, looking all so much like an apprentice that eagerly awaits praise.
Mira ducks her head as a salute, desperate now to continue on her route. How much time has she lost already? But Talyia blocks her again, tapping her tail on Mira’s head. “You must have been here for a few seasons now, yes? The vanguard arrived…” She taps her tail against Mira’s head as she thinks.
“Seven seasons,” Mira says flatly.
Talyia’s eyes light up as she nods emphatically. “Yes, you will do wonderfully. Come.” Mira bites back a growl and limps after the patched she-cat. With Umi here, Talyia is now the singular authority of the entire city. Mira can do nothing but follow; all Talyia’s words, however crazy, have the weight of the king’s.
Airheaded lunatic, Mira thinks to herself, watching Talyia prance ahead, humming some tune. And magic? Even as a high mage, there was hardly a drop of magic this far from the Core. Without the Rose, only the supreme willpower and strength of the Core allows for some magic to remain in the heart of their shrinking borders.
As if she senses Mira’s disbelief, Talyia’s paws flash purple as she gives a triumphant yowl, bouncing off walls and crossing great lengths in leaps, leaving Mira to limp along behind, following the lavender pawprints in her wake.
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Post by Wolfyy- on Apr 27, 2020 12:47:54 GMT -5
Add me!
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Post by Brownie on Apr 27, 2020 13:21:52 GMT -5
ayyy welcome to the club o/ you have been added. enjoy the updates while they last lmao I'll see how long I can keep this pace
right now we're looking at an update about every other week to keep up ffnet peaks. maybe a bit sooner, I need to remember that I can write shorter chapters and that's okay too. that short is almost 1k words and wow it feels like Nothin'.
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Post by Brownie on Jan 12, 2021 5:25:20 GMT -5
☾ Cʀᴇsᴄᴇɴᴛ ☽ mintedstar/fur🦇 Owlmoon Tawnyfire ~Sapphire~ ᴛᴜᴇsᴅᴀʏ ✲ριкαƒυєу✲ Wolfyy- so uh p8.1 smile I think it could be more dramatic and more danger, but maybe everything doesn't need to be. this is only the first half of the training arc, the second half will be with Willowpaw! And yea, tempest's color is light blue. Ghost's is obviously white, mallow's is yellow and willow's will be a dim red/pink
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Post by mintedstar/fur🦇 on Jan 12, 2021 5:25:53 GMT -5
o.o
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Post by Brownie on Jan 12, 2021 5:26:51 GMT -5
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Post by mintedstar/fur🦇 on Jan 13, 2021 0:23:57 GMT -5
Oh yes, I really should have.
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Post by ~Sapphire~ on Jan 22, 2021 16:21:47 GMT -5
The training scene was super fun! After the drama in the last chapters, it's definitely nice to take a breather and find out some more about he world. Can definitely relate to Tempest wanting to keep hold of the power (speaking of drama...)
Hope you're doing okay!
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Post by Brownie on Jan 23, 2021 15:42:14 GMT -5
yea it was nice to write something more chill and relaxed. That's what training arcs are for (:
and I didn't think of that lmao! but the detail is going to be very important later for reasons that may not be totally related or expected hehe
I'm doing pretty well! early semester stress with covid but that's to be expected. I'm actually more relieved to have a schedule than I thought I'd be???? I usually hate schedule but it's been pretty nice without commute
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Post by Brownie on Aug 5, 2022 10:59:37 GMT -5
+ 1 year + 1 part Ironically, I have this plotted out point to point until chapter 20 (except these three middle chapters, which I left open for "training arc drama" apparently). Next part will be our venture into another apprentice's POV; those happen every three parts. We get to see Rosepaw this time around! (we do have a pinglist if you want to know when new parts are out, even if they take years) (Also if you want off this pinglist lmk) ☾ Cʀᴇsᴄᴇɴᴛ ☽ mintedstar/fur🦇 Owlmoon Tawnyfire ~Sapphire~ ᴛᴜᴇsᴅᴀʏ ✲ριкαƒυєу✲ Wolfyy-
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Post by Brownie on Aug 6, 2022 11:59:00 GMT -5
also just to have this in writing because I changed people's magic colors (again) Tempestpaw's is still neon/electric blue. His "evolved" color is black Willowpaw's is confirmed eggshell yellow! she also has an evolved color, which would be this off-red? Ghosty boi is white with a tinge of green Icepool's is dark blue (which doesn't show very well on this blue bg, sorry) Batfrost's is dark purple~ Mallowsun's is pink on the purple side. Remember, she and Bat are related~ Gimmer, who's Mallowsun's sister and the Svan that we'll see most often in MapleClan, is a bit of a special case. She's basically a prism and can do what she wants with colors, even her eye and pelt color is easily mutable with her magic.
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Post by Brownie on Aug 7, 2022 7:52:05 GMT -5
So I put these updates on ffnet too (because why not) and it's funny to watch where the views come in. Like it's fairly standard to have double the clicks on the front page than anywhere else, that's people who were interested in the title but then don't like the summary. I can tell which stories are most easily accessible based on the ratio of people that click the title and then go on to chapter 1 (the number one turnover is Starless, probably because the narrator is a kit and people like that for some reason). I'm not very concerned that this story has a "high turnover" aka only about a quarter of the people that click actually read the first chapter. That's okay, because this is fantasy and more niche of a sub-genre for warriors. People not only have to like warriors fanfiction, but also fantasy to enjoy this, and that's okay, I just have a small market.
The most interesting thing is that almost everyone that reads chapter one also clicks chapter two. But its that second chapter, where the fantasy is revealed, that weeds out the rest. There's another cut of half the readers (we're down to an eighth of all clicks now). But the interesting part is that EVERYONE that reads chapter three reads up to chapter 9. I don't drop a single reader after that hook; if they're interested, they're in for the long haul. I think that's super neat! I'm a little concerned that this important hook has a "stutter" in that it's Sparkpaw's POV and not Tempest's, which could put off readers that did make it over the first checkpoint. Apparently it's okay so far, since I don't drop readers, but it's something to think about.
Anyways, I love doing some analysis on data like this. I think there's a lot to learn from when readers put the story down. And of course it's important to get them to pick it up in the first place, though the smaller the niche (like this one), the less people are going to be in that target audience.
Also a fun note is that I'll get a few re-reads of DaN any time I update anything. And almost all of those people read the entire thing; very few click and pass on DaN when there's not a new chapter of it. (If it is a DaN update aka it's on the front page, I will get a lot of clicks that don't make it tho, putting it below Starless in terms of turnover)
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Post by Brownie on Aug 23, 2022 17:52:15 GMT -5
hey for some reason I got two comments on ffnet today............... but they were both copypasta bots. Nice. Just to put this into context, I get even less comments on ffnet than ao3, which gets even less than here. If you've seen any fics of mine in the last two years, you will know that even here is only a few a year, which means having two real comments on the same day on ffnet of all places was literally impossible. So I wasn't surprised that both were spam, though I was slightly disappointed.
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Post by Tawnyfire on Dec 1, 2022 16:33:27 GMT -5
i had forgotten about this fic, but im glad i found it again. always loved the uniqueness of the clan leaders using -sun and choosing a gemstone as a way of letting fate decide your destiny.
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Post by phantomstar57 on Dec 1, 2022 16:48:55 GMT -5
Glad too, to see this back as I never got the chance to finish reading! LOVED the premise!
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Post by Tawnyfire on Dec 1, 2022 16:54:43 GMT -5
i never did either to my memory, but i dont quite remember where i left off either atm
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Post by Brownie on Dec 1, 2022 16:58:50 GMT -5
Tawnyfire I'm glad you enjoyed the premise~ It was a super common ffau at the time, so I can't take much credit for the idea itself, but I think I applied it to the fandom well and it has a lot more unique traits going for it as the plot goes on. As long as you don't mind my 1 chapter a year update schedule lmaoooo gotta wait until probably feburary for the next one. (; it's... sitting at over a quarter done? Not quite to the halfway tho spoiler it's not Tempest's POV =O (not quite a spoiler tho, every three chapters is another POV) phantomstar57 take your time it'll be decades til I finish this thing. I do have up to p20 plotted in lots of detail tho. so 12 more that I don't have to think about big choices, just the dialogue for the most part.
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Post by phantomstar57 on Dec 1, 2022 17:14:16 GMT -5
Tawnyfire I'm glad you enjoyed the premise~ It was a super common ffau at the time, so I can't take much credit for the idea itself, but I think I applied it to the fandom well and it has a lot more unique traits going for it as the plot goes on. As long as you don't mind my 1 chapter a year update schedule lmaoooo gotta wait until probably feburary for the next one. (; it's... sitting at over a quarter done? Not quite to the halfway tho spoiler it's not Tempest's POV =O (not quite a spoiler tho, every three chapters is another POV) phantomstar57 take your time it'll be decades til I finish this thing. I do have up to p20 plotted in lots of detail tho. so 12 more that I don't have to think about big choices, just the dialogue for the most part. LOL I will, but time is something slipping away so fast! Not sure how many decades I have left in this life-hopefully at least 2 more. I still have a lot of projects to finish! But I will definitely read. And eventually finish that last NEW BLOOD story. I was in my late 50s when I joined this forum old and new. How do I suddenly find myself in my mid 60s???
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Post by Tawnyfire on Dec 1, 2022 18:25:26 GMT -5
Tawnyfire I'm glad you enjoyed the premise~ It was a super common ffau at the time, so I can't take much credit for the idea itself, but I think I applied it to the fandom well and it has a lot more unique traits going for it as the plot goes on. As long as you don't mind my 1 chapter a year update schedule lmaoooo gotta wait until probably feburary for the next one. (; it's... sitting at over a quarter done? Not quite to the halfway tho spoiler it's not Tempest's POV =O (not quite a spoiler tho, every three chapters is another POV) phantomstar57 take your time it'll be decades til I finish this thing. I do have up to p20 plotted in lots of detail tho. so 12 more that I don't have to think about big choices, just the dialogue for the most part. honestly it's amazing to find that your still updating this, even tho it feels like it been forever (will have to go look to see when i found it). But i'll definitely be rereading this until i catch up, but i'm curious on what ffau means?
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Post by Brownie on Dec 1, 2022 19:00:46 GMT -5
ig that pressures me to finish it soon then =O
and ffau is fan fiction alternate universe. Usually regarding a trope that can be applied to characters in any genre. Soulmate AU is probably the most common, but there are others~ At the time I was writing this, the fanfic community was just coming out of a "gemstone AU" era haha I think it was mostly connected with dragons tho? Like gemstones made characters dragons or shapeshifters (sometimes vampires tho that was a little more 2010-12 era with twilight's peak).
it's terrifying that this is 6 years old like !! This is my NEWEST fanfic it's not that old ;-; then I remember I posted my first fanfic in early 2012 (and even if it sucked my premise actually holds up. At least until the last two arcs made it not canon-complicit since they brought back SkyClan...)
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Post by Tawnyfire on Dec 1, 2022 19:46:06 GMT -5
ooh, gotcha. don't remember that area particularly well, but i don't remember much from 2017 all that well anyway.
if this fic is 6 years old, then these forums would be around 7 years old now. gods it's been way longer then i thought it had been.
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Post by Brownie on Dec 1, 2022 20:19:19 GMT -5
yea I'm pretty sure the prompt for this (aka the first chapter) was from a contest on the old forums before they closed. this is the first (and really only) longform project I had that was created for this forum only.
tbh nowadays I just make worlds and anthologies. Granite Circle is my child.
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Post by Tawnyfire on Dec 2, 2022 4:19:12 GMT -5
yea I'm pretty sure the prompt for this (aka the first chapter) was from a contest on the old forums before they closed. this is the first (and really only) longform project I had that was created for this forum only. tbh nowadays I just make worlds and anthologies. Granite Circle is my child. I was more on the rp forums back then, but that's kinda cool this started on the old forums. And World building is fun (even if it stays private), so that's understandable.
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Post by Brownie on Dec 2, 2022 20:33:45 GMT -5
yea I'm pretty sure the prompt for this (aka the first chapter) was from a contest on the old forums before they closed. this is the first (and really only) longform project I had that was created for this forum only. tbh nowadays I just make worlds and anthologies. Granite Circle is my child. I was more on the rp forums back then, but that's kinda cool this started on the old forums. And World building is fun (even if it stays private), so that's understandable. I kinda wish I did rp back on the old forums. I did a little bit, but I had so much more time to devote and also there were so many more active options!
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Post by mintedstar/fur🦇 on Dec 20, 2022 13:07:31 GMT -5
How goes it?
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Post by Brownie on Dec 20, 2022 14:49:22 GMT -5
it goes (; Granite Circle has been consuming my writing life. I love it dearly, but it's an even bigger worldbuilding project that this + the extended AU was. I'm probably gonna write another two shorts for it today .-.
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Post by mintedstar/fur🦇 on Dec 27, 2022 1:06:33 GMT -5
You got this! <3
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Post by Brownie on Dec 28, 2022 14:14:49 GMT -5
thanks <3333
it helps that there's so MUCH, so that if I don't like what I'm currently working on, I can just go fill in a different corner
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Post by mintedstar/fur🦇 on Jan 1, 2023 15:33:23 GMT -5
All the projects. ALL the projects.
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Post by Brownie on Jul 20, 2023 23:39:00 GMT -5
there will be another chapter of this soon!
I'm a little struggling because it's Rosepaw POV and I want it to be a BANGER but it will happen sometime next week mkmk (I say this like the update schedule isn't months, if not years) (also blame Tempestshit for deciding to teleport himself to the astral plane last chapter WITHOUT MY PERMISSION) (and now I have to spend literally months trying to decide how to bring him back) (yes it was cool but also) (BRO follow the PLOT)
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