[Fic] "The Moons of Skaia" -- Homestuck

Today is Ladystuck reveal day! I wrote four fics this year: my assignment, a pinch hit, and two treats just because. I will talk about each in a separate post.

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The Moons of Skaia: Twelve sweeps after the Collapse, Justiciar Redglare came to the moons of Skaia on the trail of Her Imperious Condescension. [2,450 words]

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This is my assignment, written for chthonianCrocuta (lovesthesoundof). I wrote a pinch hit for chthonianCrocuta last year because I fell in passionate infatuation with one of their prompts; apparently this trend holds true, because I wanted to write for all five of the prompts they made this year as well. In the event, "The Moons of Skaia" is only a response to three of them: one about linguistics, one about world-building a cultural melting-pot planet, and one about Redglare going about her life. I was going to squeeze in Redglare meeting Terezi as well -- that's kind of vaguely implied in the ending action of the fic -- but I realized that doing so would require me to write the whole plot of Redglare finding the Condesce, capturing or not capturing her, and so on. Sadly, I did not have time to do all of that by the exchange deadline, but I'd like to write more in this world someday, so... who knows!

I think the basic world-building is clear in the fic itself, but here are some details I wasn't able to make fully explicit on-page. This universe is a post-game mashup of the final iterations of both the humans' and trolls' universes, with some significant game-related additions. The Collapse is the name given to the moment when the new universe was created... except it came with a retroactive past, such that people remember both their lives in their old universes and in this one. (Also, people were taken and/or resurrected from all up and down their old universes' timelines.)

Skaia is a gas giant planet that orbits a massive yellow-white star. It has eight moons, which are slightly more scientifically plausible versions of the eight kids' Lands. I suspect Prospit is an inner world in a Venus-type orbit, and Derse is out in a Uranus-type orbit. The name of the star is Calamity. The debris out near its heliopause is a symbolic echo of the Möbius tangle that forms around a fully developed Battlefield in Sburb.

As for the players who were alive at the end of the game, I think they were offered the option of becoming gods of their newly created universe, and rejected that either as part of the price of defeating Lord English, or because they'd seen too much of power corrupting, or because that was incompatible with recreating bits of their old universes instead of creating a completely new slate. Whatever the reason, they retain some fraction of their game powers, but they live and age as normal members of their species.

[Fic] "New Roots" -- Homestuck

Today is Ladystuck reveal day! I wrote four fics this year: my assignment, a pinch hit, and two treats just because. I will talk about each in a separate post.

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New Roots: I think a fic with gardener Jade and author Rose would be nice. Perhaps Rose was buying flowers for her mom, or Rose simply keeps a garden at home. Maybe Jade could be the person who helps Rose out, then discovers that Rose was the person who wrote Jade's favorite book. [2,300 words]

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This is a pinch hit, written for Ghost_Assist, because the prompt was too adorable to resist. Sometimes I just want to write something warm and fluffy, you know? And who can resist a flower shop meet-cute with lesbians. :-)

I had particular fun inventing an imaginary urban fantasy series for Rose to write and Jade to be a fan of. The Persephone Noir tetralogy is more or less described within the fic, but to summarize, it's about a young woman whose mother had an affair with a horrorterror and spent the rest of her life emotionally addicted to dark magic and trying to push her daughter into following her own path. Instead, Sephy becomes a hero, saves the world, and ends the series by breaking free from both of her parents' plans and influence.

I suspect that after Rose finishes her Complacency of the Learned series -- you may notice she's just published its first volume at the opening of the fic -- she writes another set of Persephone Noir books, in which Sephy meets an enthusiastic earth witch who wants to analyze magic from a scientific perspective. Together, they fight crime! (Er. I mean, they fight nameless things from beyond the walls of the universe. And possibly also shadowy government organizations. As one does.) Fans are divided over happiness at Sephy finally getting a steady girlfriend, and annoyance at the increased intrusion of romance plotlines into their dark action/adventure series. *evil grin*

(Also, yes, I know Jade really should have at least one assistant on the clock if she's running a store of that size. Please assume the assistant was out delivering some commissioned floral arrangements and returned shortly after Rose left. *blatantly handwaves*)

[Fic] "The Rule of Threes" -- Homestuck

Today is Ladystuck reveal day! I wrote four fics this year: my assignment, a pinch hit, and two treats just because. I will talk about each in a separate post.

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The Rule of Threes: The day Aradia Megido arrived in New York, three important things happened, though she only noted two at the time. [1,375 words]

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This is a treat, written for ChameleonSerket. They requested a humanstuck modern magic AU with the following elements:

-Aradia, a hedgewitch in a small town with a talent for fortune telling and prediction, moves to a big seaside city to seek fame and fortune (or something like that anyway).
-Feferi, a very rich noble who is the most powerful seawitch that has been seen for decades.
-Jade, a mysterious witch living in Aradia's apartment block who may or may not have space altering powers.
-Finally, Rose who is a seer plagued by horrible rage filled episodes (possession?) with an affinity for both light and dark magics.

I didn't get Feferi on-page, but I managed the rest. As with "The Moons of Skaia," there's a much larger story I didn't have time to write -- in a very real sense, "The Rule of Threes" acts as the opening chapter for that unwritten fic. And again, maybe someday I will come back and see where the threads I laid will take me. :-)

[Fic] "Sandedge" -- Homestuck

Today is Ladystuck reveal day! I wrote four fics this year: my assignment, a pinch hit, and two treats just because. I will talk about each in a separate post.

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Sandedge: Unfortunately, when you turn around, you realize the cave was already occupied. Fortunately, the occupant can be reasoned with. (The Dolorosa meets the Disciple.) [1,325 words]

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This is a treat written for ratherrumpus, who asked for an exploration of the Dolorosa's relationship with the Disciple. It's kind of a sequel to an unwritten story about the Disciple's early childhood that I've been struggling with for over a year. That fic would start with a tiny, nameless, feral troll girl slowly and warily getting domesticated by the abbess of Sandedge, and end with her flight into the desert after the abbey's destruction. I'm not sure I'll ever figure out how to write that story, so it was nice to have a chance to pick up some of the background work and repurpose it in a slightly more hopeful setting.

The fic is part of my Ancestral Nights continuity, though I obviously couldn't add it to that series while the Ladystuck archives were still anonymous.

And now for a trivia note! I've mentioned the Sandedge spaceport twice in Trollstuck: Make Her Pay -- once as the location of a fight between the Summoner and the Grand Highblood, and once as a line in a wiggler rhyme that Vriska uses to disrupt Davven's thoughts and dialogue. So it's part of my general headcanon about the Ancestors and Alternia, though I haven't had a chance to explore it in detail, either as a spaceport or an abbey.