WHITE HORSES: how it started/how it's going

[headstone]

This wip. It’s evolved a lot! I’m really enjoying where it’s going now! It's proving really difficult to write, but so is everything else right now, so I think it's just a me problem.

I've never been Like This about a ship before... but y'all knew that. They just mean a lot to me and these are fictional worlds I love to play in time and time again. But I'm in the dumps with my writing at the moment so this is just one of those posts I write to convince myself it's worth sticking out creative projects even when I feel about as capable of writing interesting things as a slug.

Last month, I asked for people on mastodon to give me prompts to chitchat about it, so I'm archiving + expanding on some of those thoughts here.

Poppy: What is the fic about?

my take on the classic beefleaf postcanon reconciliation fic! I've had it on the backburner for years but am actively working on it now.

Elevator pitch summary: sqx 14 years postcanon has a relatively stable life as a menial employee at an inn who moonlights as a pro bono exorcist. They don't have much spiritual power anymore obv so they mainly draw from their experience, cultivator tips and tricks, and their people skills to help folks with low level ghost problems. One day out of the blue they hear swd's voice in their head, though, and start worrying that he's somehow back and haunting them. Cue reluctantly reaching back out to hx to help them deal with this problem. They do supernatural caseficcy stuff while also being forced to reckon with swd's legacy and everything unfinished between them~

sophia_sol: Is there a particular part of the wip you're particularly looking forward to writing?

The memory/dream diving sequences for sure; giving sqx and hx the chance to witness some of each other's most angsty memories is super indulgent. Also the slow burn edging towards intimacy stuff when they both know full well they still want each other, and they know the other knows they know, but there are still legit reasons to hesitate so they're just making little compromises and taking what they can get, Yearningly...

brownbetty - What's the id vortex you're circling/what theorist do you have scrawled in your fic notes for this one?

elements of this id vortex include

• slow burn exes to lovers... plot-mandated platonic bedsharing with your old flame who broke your heart, etc...
• detective story elements without committing to writing a proper mystery
• wallowing in shi sibling angst and "going there" with the incest undertones more than I usually do
• more sense of place, material culture, slice of life, coziness etc than you usually get from tgcf fic
• the above stuff getting tempered with The Horrors (occasionally)
• themes about building a life after loss and failure, which I always find compelling
• going for the illusion of maximalist gothic whimsy but consistent with my own style and voice

verity - what do you think will be the most crunchy gendery moment

ummm probably the really tender muffing scene which is the first time they have sex again 😭 orrrr the other sex scene which mainly involves some classic "hx bottoming as a girl" content in the form of having sqx make her come multiple times until she's obviously getting overstimulated and sqx is like "are you sure you don't want to stop...???? 😟” and hx is like "NO !!” because she is in love with them and doesn't want to stop in case sqx dumps her again akdjhkgjfghdjkhg

the sex scenes in this are like. particularly gendery

---

I’ve talked this fic to death in the past, but that was back when this was the only Beefleaf longfic I planned to ever write. Now we've got one in the bag, one serializing on AO3, and I'm turning my gaze back to the OG. I'm drafting it in its entirety before serializing it, as practice for hopefully writing my fucking novel one of these days, and it's a bit funny to see how the concept has evolved over the years as it's branched out into a bunch of different stories that all riff on aspects of the original concept. A lot of the inspo fodder in the "scrapbook" post linked above is no longer appropriate for the story as it currently stands. I thought it'd be fun to compile the stuff that has stuck around, plus some new things.

The Shi siblings image in this photoset;

enough of can you see me, can you hear me, enough / I am human, enough I am alone and I am desperate, / enough of the animal saving me, enough of the high / water, enough sorrow, enough of the air and its ease, / I am asking you to touch me.

(ADA LIMON)

Love comes unstuck in the brain / Like a memory stolen / Like a diamond deep in the earth /
Like a razor unfolded

(LOMA)

So: enough of this terror / We deserve to know light / And grow evermore lighter and lighter / You would have seen me through / But I could not undo that desire

(JOANNA NEWSOM)

...which leads me to an aspect of this scenario I really especially like: the idea that a significant passage of time to be immersed in the world after the end of their myth could allow both of these characters to, if given the opportunity via plot, just like... Be with each other a little. Time won't heal all wounds on its own, but to experience 14 years of what are, by their respective standards, pretty good lives (once they're out of the rock bottom period), and to then see each other for the first time in ages... I come back to my conviction that the experience would be something like, "Oh, you still /have it/ like that. Even though everything is different now. We still have it like that." It isn't coming from naivete anymore; they've parted ways and been around other people, and rather than showing them how much better stuff is out there, it's never been more clear that they were never settling, back then. The relationship was special. They really are each other's one that got away. And they're not gods, just a ghost and a human; how can they pretend not to want selfish things in this aimless, beloved, fallen world?

In other words...

I tried so hard / But no one does it like you

(DEPARTMENT OF EAGLES)

The smell of rose perfume / Fills up my lonely room / I wanna love you like before [...] I’m only flesh and blood

(CINDY LEE)