Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Deorum (Of Gods)

All right, this is the last (and longest) part of Deorum!  The rest of the story is in this tag (Parts I, II, III, IV, and V).  This takes place a about a week and a half after Part V, and includes the grand reveal about Jack’s…situation.  I hope you guys like it, and thanks so much for sticking with me through this mess of a story!  If you have any questions, I have a bunch more stuff worked out for the universe, so feel free to ask away.

The newly arrived family across the hall from Jack hadn’t tried to invite him over again, but Marcus and his wife—Dorothea-call-me-Dot, as Jack learned upon meeting her—still greeted him when they passed.  He knew that the son, Jesse, was quiet and smiled shyly at him, and Apollo had been elated with the boy’s interest in art, and that Mac, the daughter, was buoyantly energetic at all times and drove her parents to distraction.  Dot was handling the adjustment better than her husband, which he knew for a fact because he had seen her talking to Sekhmet about getting blood out of clothes after Mac’s latest mishap.

Marcus, on the other hand, had almost swooned when he saw Hapi and Bragi together in front of Starbucks.  Jack had been more than a little judgmental when he saw Marcus waver and grip the edge of the table outside.

So it was a shock when there was a sharp hammering on his door on Wednesday afternoon, and Jack opened it to reveal Marcus standing there and looking disheveled.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, sweeping a glance over the man.  His usual tidy suit was missing its jacket and his hair stuck up in clumps as if he’d been dragging his hands through it.

“Have you seen my kids?” Marcus asked, skipping any semblance of polite greeting.

Jack paused.  “…no? Are they not where they’re supposed to be?”

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Deorum (Of Gods)

RIGHT, sorry for the delay, I forgot this was a thing.  Here is Part V, set about six days after the last bit.  Parts I, II, III, and IV are also available

It was a Friday morning again when Jack woke himself up from a dream with shouting in a language he didn’t immediately recognize.  This would have alarmed him more if he hadn’t discovered, over the past several days, a native speaker’s knowledge of German, Japanese, Welsh, Spanish, and Slovakian, as well as passable fluency in a handful of other tongues—including, to Anansi’s supreme satisfaction, Akan.  The shouting was new, though, and as his brain caught up to the adrenaline in his veins, he vaguely recognized it as Russian, diphthong vowels dripping from hard consonants.

Jack tried to recapture the sound of his words, as if he could collect the echoes from where they had settled in corners of the room and hollows of the blankets, reassemble them into speech.  He opened his mouth and let his lips move to form the syllables he had heard.

“Something meshok moi,” he said aloud. “Popast’v meshok moi.”

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50 “Not so Nice” OC or FR Asks

catbatart:

thedovahcat:

flynneware:

dendingo:

wanderers-of-sornieth:

List your OCs in the tags or link your lair so that people can ask you!

1. What is one word to shut them up?

2. What is the thing they feel the most guilty about?

3. What is the worst pain they’ve ever experienced?

4. Describe their worst nightmare.

5. List 3 fears; one “surface level” fear, one “repressed” fear, and one “deep dark” fear.

6. What is something that never fails to make them feel sick?

7. What feature (physical or otherwise) do they hate most about themselves?

8. Do they have anything that triggers them?

9. What is their greatest physical weakness?

10. What is their greatest mental weakness?

11. Do they have any vices?

12. Have they ever done something illegal? What was it?

13. Which of the 7 Deadly Sins best describes them?

14. Are they prone to outbursts (of violence, extreme emotion… exc… )?

15. Who do they hate the most?

16. Is there anyone who makes them feel inferior?

17. What sound always gives them a headache?

18. Is there a certain flavor that disgusts them?

19. Do they consider themselves ugly?

20. Do they consider themselves unloveable?

21. What is something that causes them great anxiety?

22. Do they have any mental illnesses?

23. Have they ever been assaulted/abused/raped?

24. Do they fear the possibility of being assaulted/abused/raped?

25. Have they ever been betrayed by someone they thought they could trust?

26. Have they ever been seriously injured?

27. How many times have they been in the hospital?

28. Is there a certain type of person that disgusts them?

29. Does what they cannot see scare them?

30. Have they ever been bullied?

31. Do they have self-confidence or self-image issues?

32. Do they have a bad relationship with their parents?

33. Have they ever been in a relationship that didn’t work out so well?

34. Have they ever self harmed?

35. If they could change one thing about themselves, what would it be?

36. Are they in control of their emotions, or are their emotions in control of them?

37. Have they ever had their freedom taken away?

38. Have they ever been imprisoned?

39. Have they ever been accused of something they didn’t do?

40. Do they often blame themselves for other people’s problems?

41. Do they get sick often?

42. Are they comfortable with where they are in life?

43. Do they wish that they could change their pasts?

44. What’s one thing they wish they could do more often, but can’t?

45. What is the emotion they most commonly experience?

46. Have they ever contemplated suicide?

47. Have they ever gone so far as to attempt suicide?

48. Is there anyone that they would willingly kill?

49. If [name] was put into ______ situation, they’d rather die than live to see it through.

50. Create your own!

Ask anyone anything!

Please ask these for Kai and Rhys; these are fantastic for development! 

My kinda meme

Sure why not. I’m terrible at answering prompts these days but heck, maybe.

(via dyinghistoric)

Deorum (Of Gods)

O K A Y.  Only took me like nine days to get a new computer, so here we go, posting of this story will now resume its daily schedule.  This is Part IV, Parts I, II, and III are also available.  This scene takes place the day after the previous one–Jack is no longer dying of a divine-level hangover, is the point.  Also, please feel free to correct my German, I do not dich the language.

“Hey, Jackie,” Idunn said, already sliding forward a travel cup with an elegant cursive J on the side.  Her handwriting would have made calligraphers weep with envy, although her print letters were angular and sharp-edged as blades.  “How are you feeling?”

“Eh,” he said with a shrug and an expressive hand motion.  “Ich bin gut, aber erschoft.”  Jack’s eyes widened at the sound of his own words and one hand flicked up to touch his lips, a betrayed look crossing his face.

“Didn’t know you spoke German, Jack,” Idunn said in a strange voice—careful and calm, as if bracing herself or someone else against an oncoming onslaught. “Wen haben Sie erfahren?”

“I…didn’t?” he said through his fingers, and felt almost shaky with relief when the words spilled out in familiar English.  “What the fuck?”

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PSA

All right kiddies, this is an announcement that my fucking hard drive crashed yesterday and my computer is officially KIA. The rest of Deorum will be posted when I have a new computer, which could take like two weeks, so…yep. Also I am very annoyed, I’m probably going to crawl out of my skin without my writing to work on.

Deorum (Of Gods)

Sorry for the delay, and here is Part III.  Parts I and II are here and here, respectively.  Since this one is pretty short, I might post Part IV later tonight.  Also, since not all of these are obvious in terms of timeline, this one takes place the morning immediately following Part II, which is a couple of days after Part I.

The knock on Jack’s door woke him up and he immediately regretted continuing to allow Thursday nights to happen to him, as he did every Friday morning.  Thursdays had been happening to him for several years now, since before he was legal to drink, and he had expected to build up a tolerance eventually, but there was no sign of such a thing.  It probably had something to do with Thor’s insistence on having them be strictly Bring Your Own Alcohol, which usually ended with divine-strength mead from the Norse, sake from the Japanese, and beer from the Egyptians, among others.  Dionysus had brought wine exactly once before being strictly barred from ever doing so again—possibly because it had almost landed Jack in the hospital after a glass of the stuff, more likely because there had been a lot of wounded pride going around among the gods.

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Deorum (Of Gods)

All right, here is Part II of Deorum.  Part I is here, I hope you guys enjoy!

“Jackie, you look terrible,” the girl at the counter said, alarmed.  She had delicate features, with an upturned nose and a light scattering of freckles over her cheeks, and her long brown hair was bound up into a neat crown of braids.  She looked about sixteen, dressed in a pearly grey shirt and a black apron that said simply Idunn’s Coffee.  “What’s wrong?”

“Wish you wouldn’t call me that, Idunn,” he said, and she smiled at him fondly, flashing a slim line of teeth.  She had conceded to the Anglicized version of her name with more grace than some of her other counterparts, which Jack appreciated.  He found the ‘eth’ letter rather difficult, and she despaired of his pronunciation.

“You’ve mentioned,” she said, brushing one hand over her forehead in the habitual movement of one checking for stray hairs.  A pair of stacked gold rings glinted on her index finger, with a third on her thumb.  Her entire family dripped with the things, Jack knew—a scant three was downright restrained.  “You do look exhausted, though.  Everything okay?”

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Deorum (Of Gods)

All right, so, I hit 400 followers and as promised, here is Deorum!  This is just the first part, obviously, because…uh…I’m me, so naturally this is pushing 30 pages.  Also: Deorum is Latin for ‘of (the) gods,’ Jack is…not the Christian god, nor is he Jesus.  I thought that was apparent, but there was much confusion in my writing class so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.  And for once, the curtains are not just blue, everything has a meaning, EVERYTHING.  Feel free to hit me up if you want a detailed breakdown.

“A woman I don’t know is boiling tea the Indian way in my kitchen,” Jack Deorum hissed into his phone, keeping one eye on the red-lipped woman at his counter. He was as far away as he could manage while staying within visual range, taking care to keep his voice down, and the woman seemed unperturbed.  Her hands were graceful, flashing quick and lovely about the white porcelain of his favorite mug and the black-brushed steel of his electric kettle.  Her masses of coiling black hair spilled down her back, stark as paint against the drape of her rose and gold sari, cut in a South Indian style.  Her feet were bare and delicate.

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I’m Taking A Poll

words-writ-in-starlight:

words-writ-in-starlight:

All right, so, those of you who’ve been around long enough may or may not recall that my practice when I hit a round number of followers is to post some original writing (see: Methods of Inheritance and Sabbatical).  And I’m coming up on 400, so I’ll be doing that again!  But!  I have…a lot of original fiction.  A lot of original fiction.  So I’m going to offer a list of options, and you lot can tell me which one you’d like to see!  To vote, you can reply to this post or reblog it, or send me a message, although I’d prefer the ask box over a private message just because it’ll be easier to collate the answers that way.  For the novels, obviously, you’d be getting an excerpt, probably 2-5 pages.  Any short stories, though, you’d get all of.

Polaris: the revolutionary girlfriends with superpowers novel (as yet incomplete).  Like.  There’s more detail, obviously.  But that’s pretty much what we’re dealing with there.  There are a bunch of LGBT characters and a few superpowers and a revolution, thus: revolutionary girlfriends with superpowers novel.  Tag is here if you want more detail.

Falls the Shadow: my best beloved novel about the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, led by Sam, the Horseman of Death and Antichrist.  This one’s complete, but it is H E F T Y at 250K words.  I’m editing it down.  Tag is here, but no one asks me about it, so there’s not much there.  First of a trilogy.

Battalion: the novel where angels happened and fucked everything up, and humans have been fucking them over in response for about 70 years (incomplete).  Yep.  That’s here, and there is exactly one post.

Stories From the Second War: a triad of short stories technically set in the FtS universe, about Heaven’s war against the Nephilim.  Um…they’re dark.  The Nephilim are monstrous.  But I think they might be some of my favorite writing I’ve done.  They are Tell All the Truth (But Tell It Slant) and To Fight Aloud, Is Very Brave (Uniforms of Snow), both from the perspective of the leader of the Nephilim, and The Stillness in the Air (Between Heaves of Storm), from the perspective of her hunting partner.  I’d put all three on here as a set, because I think they work best that way.

Deorum (Of Gods): a short story I wrote for that writing class I hated.  Jack, the main character, lives in a city populated partly by mortals and partly by the gods of the world’s pantheons–Idunn owns a coffee shop, Apollo teaches art at an elementary school, Ninkasi runs a bar, and dark things live in the woods.  Jack attracts more gods than he’s strictly comfortable with, and they all seem to know him remarkably well….  I don’t know if it’s my best work in terms of quality, but I definitely think it’s up there as the most fun.  This is about forty pages, so I’d have to post it piecemeal.  

So…yeah.  Anyone have a preference?

OKAY KIDS.

I have reached 400 followers, but I have a tie, which means that this is SUDDEN DEATH.

Polaris (AKA “revolutionary girlfriends with superpowers”) and Deorum (AKA “Please let Jack sleep”) are tied for the top voted piece.  Please vote for your preference, summaries are above.

The votes are in!  I will begin posting Deorum today.

I’m Taking A Poll

All right, so, those of you who’ve been around long enough may or may not recall that my practice when I hit a round number of followers is to post some original writing (see: Methods of Inheritance and Sabbatical).  And I’m coming up on 400, so I’ll be doing that again!  But!  I have…a lot of original fiction.  A lot of original fiction.  So I’m going to offer a list of options, and you lot can tell me which one you’d like to see!  To vote, you can reply to this post or reblog it, or send me a message, although I’d prefer the ask box over a private message just because it’ll be easier to collate the answers that way.  For the novels, obviously, you’d be getting an excerpt, probably 2-5 pages.  Any short stories, though, you’d get all of.

Polaris: the revolutionary girlfriends with superpowers novel (as yet incomplete).  Like.  There’s more detail, obviously.  But that’s pretty much what we’re dealing with there.  There are a bunch of LGBT characters and a few superpowers and a revolution, thus: revolutionary girlfriends with superpowers novel.  Tag is here if you want more detail.

Falls the Shadow: my best beloved novel about the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, led by Sam, the Horseman of Death and Antichrist.  This one’s complete, but it is H E F T Y at 250K words.  I’m editing it down.  Tag is here, but no one asks me about it, so there’s not much there.  First of a trilogy.

Battalion: the novel where angels happened and fucked everything up, and humans have been fucking them over in response for about 70 years (incomplete).  Yep.  That’s here, and there is exactly one post.

Stories From the Second War: a triad of short stories technically set in the FtS universe, about Heaven’s war against the Nephilim.  Um…they’re dark.  The Nephilim are monstrous.  But I think they might be some of my favorite writing I’ve done.  They are Tell All the Truth (But Tell It Slant) and To Fight Aloud, Is Very Brave (Uniforms of Snow), both from the perspective of the leader of the Nephilim, and The Stillness in the Air (Between Heaves of Storm), from the perspective of her hunting partner.  I’d put all three on here as a set, because I think they work best that way.

Deorum (Of Gods): a short story I wrote for that writing class I hated.  Jack, the main character, lives in a city populated partly by mortals and partly by the gods of the world’s pantheons–Idunn owns a coffee shop, Apollo teaches art at an elementary school, Ninkasi runs a bar, and dark things live in the woods.  Jack attracts more gods than he’s strictly comfortable with, and they all seem to know him remarkably well….  I don’t know if it’s my best work in terms of quality, but I definitely think it’s up there as the most fun.  This is about forty pages, so I’d have to post it piecemeal.  

So…yeah.  Anyone have a preference?