I’d rather thought that by this point in time I’d have given up on this site, but I recently paid for my domain to last another three years – prior to this I’d only been buying a single year at a time, and keeping the costs of the actual hosting low because I get very little traffic (not that I ever look), and don’t post new content very often.
And then new year rolled around again and I mostly ignored it again. I think this year I was in bed before 10pm, or maybe after 1am… I don’t actually recall. And really it doesn’t matter I’d made my resolutions before actual new year, just as I always do. This year I’ve mostly managed to keep one so far with one or two lapses, minor though they are they annoy me still. The other I broke on day 2… so that was a fail.
On the other hand I have managed to keep it – that 2nd resolution far better than I expected, you see I’ve finally got into writing again. I’ve barely done any since 2016ish, I had a glut of new files and edits to old files in 2016, but I did very little between then and 2024. But I’ve written about 100 pages of A4 since January, which given how little I’ve written in the previous 7 years is amazing. What is more I have even published some, so it can be read by more people than just me.
Fiction:
I am primarily writing stories set within the Whateley Academy fictional shared universe, I’m specifically writing WhatIF (Whateley Independent Fiction) which would be called Fanfics in other places. And I don’t have any reason to want to become a canon (stories become defacto how the world works) author. I’m working on a non-Whateley story, which is 16k words/38 pages in (unedited). And I have plans for another two stories (one with some scenes written) both of which I would like to publish at some point – just got to actually write them.
Whateley Academy (Whateley Academy Universe), is a school for mutants (and some paranormals) that is neutral in a rather polarised world, they educate both the children of heroes and villains. The setting is basically an IP that reflects comics and games based around Marvel and DC comic book heroes – without actually infringing those IP.
It’s currently divided into two generations, Gen1Y1 is set in 2006, Gen1Y2 is set in 2007. Gen2 is set in 2016, the originators of G2 wanted to make a decent amount of separation between the two generations, I’d be unsurprised if a Gen3 doesn’t turn up in the next few years. All my current characters are aimed as Gen2, though some were created with the encounters of Gen1 characters in mind, (Briar, Voracity).
Whateley: (WAU)
- Avatar: Is about a character that is the host for the goddess Skaði (Skathi), an Avatar in the WU is a mutant who can host a variety of spirits, these spirits then give them super powers of some sort, in the case of my character, these powers are tied to her dominions as a goddess (those things she was goddess of), originally I started writing this character to give my training team a ranged combatant, but I rather like her as a character in her own right now.
Parts 1 & 2 published but due a rewrite due to criticism, a large part of that is done, but I want to get a little ahead in part 2 (actually part 3) before I pull the old versions down and upload the edits. - Briar: Briar is a mage of amazing skill, from a parallel universe who really doesn’t understand how this world (WU) works or why the mages are using such an outdated method of magic, unlike my other characters she is intended to become a teacher and not a student. I’m hoping to use her as a spring boarding toward playing around with some of the Gen1 characters in the Gen2 setting
- Dragon: A throw away character I made to play around on the Role Play chat on the WAU Discord, who I then fleshed out into a full character, I don’t plan on writing a full story for her, she’ll be an alternative character in the main story. Though I didn’t plan on her being a character at all… so she may yet be fully fleshed out. She’s a 2’ long dragon, who really likes flying and doing tricks… she can fly at around Mach 2 (just under but it depends on pressure, moisture, etc). A lot of my characters are intended to be really amazing at one thing and weak at most others, this character is a great flyer.
- Dwarf: Manifests and turns into a classical fantasy (female) dwarf, she is basically an amazing smith who will be able to make magical items using runes thought lost to time. Idea is one I have played with in a number of settings for quite a long time, she may or may not actually get to Whateley, but if she does she has a place in my overarching plot.
- Jinx: I was a big fan of Imagine Dragon’s Enemy, from the series Arcane. I had issues with actually watching the series as it had quite a lot of mind control, and other stuff I have problems with. But I really liked Powder/Jinx, and wanted to create a tribute to her in Whateley, part 1 is written though it needs to be edited, I plan on getting well into part 2 before I release part 1. The only issue I have is the name Jinx has already been used in universe, so I have had to rename her, but she’s going to keep the Powder in some way – not worked that bit out yet, she’s just on the cusp of manifesting (she’s started, but most of that will be in part 2+).
- Lost (Astral): Part 1 is published, I’m working on part 2, because it’s now actually at Whateley it is much harder for me to write, and because it somewhat relies on other characters it’s a bit slow. And yes this character is basically me in some ways, though the original brief has changed somewhat – I keep getting accused of power creep but many of my characters lose abilities to weaken them. I like to think of ways round difficult situations to see what an alternative path would be. But I dislike just brute forcing things – oddly most of my characters share this trait.
- Protector: Very loosely designed as a spiritual copy of Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small, down to her pets… Actually, she’s already proving hard to shoehorn into that role, so apart from being a martial arts nut with a glaive and a will to use it, not sure what she’ll end up being.
- Villain: Part of my overarcing plans for all my WAU characters, tells the tail from a certain perspective of another of the Gen1 characters, who is in the clutches of an evil mutant (Lost/Astral escaped from her), can enslave baselines in unlimited numbers and also edit (re-engineer) them to change how they work though the process is slow, as of this point in time she’s in an asylum beginning to take it over, the PoV character is a mutant but with receptive telepathy/empathy (not sure what else), who can watch but can’t be enslaved.
- Rough Overview of my plot: Astral escaped from a hidden lab somewhere in Kansas, after being kidnapped from England, the lab was then raided by a local hero group which led to the villain who was using the lab to perform experiments on mutant teenagers to be taken away – she is thought to be a victim – she ends up in an Asylum, she is blind and mute and pretends not to hear/has selective hearing. The same asylum has a mutant who is there because her family refuse to deal with her responsibly and an apparent teenage girl who is in some sort of comma, all the other residents are non-mutants. Meanwhile Ellin (Briar) has reached Whateley and is rooming with Fey (G1 character), another G1 character turns up and they begin looking for one of their team mates, other G1 characters are seen, all looking for their team mate.
Villain (who is nameless) has now fully taken over the asylum and is looking for a source of test subjects, she learns about a school for mutants which seems to her to be a brilliant place to go to find more test subjects. She unleashes a huge wave of mind controlled baselines onto Whateley which can’t be killed because they’re innocents, but yet must be stopped of the villain can take over the school and use all the students for revolting and unethical tests.
Unnamed coma teen is G1 missing team mate, (If you’ve read G1 it’s pretty obvious who she’ll be), and unnamed telepath/empath is instrumental in winning the battle.
Non-Whateley:
- Magic Things: Based on one of my older stories – or set in the same universe. Think urban fantasy with a high school age witch with no oversight and to much power running amok settling petty jealousies with spells that alter reality. Protagonist is changed into a girl, which then unlocks her own latent witch abilities… she’s got to work out how to get back to who she was without alerting either the witch who changed her or the magical council who are more likely to make her forget it happened than fix it. Also she can’t tell anyone about it.
- Briar: This is an odd one, the Briar mentioned above is this one. But when I was originally planning out that one I decided that I wanted to flesh out his/her (she started off male) story in her home dimension. I have a story planned out somewhat and have written some bits of it. But it’s heavy going as it’s created entirely by me and encompasses ~200k years of history (broad strokes). Originally her sojourn on earth would be the start, but I have since removed that plotline and this briar doesn’t share much with the Whateley version.
- A planet somewhere in the human sphere of space is being invaded by demons, they come in waves, and the longer each invasion lasts the nastier, larger and more intelligent, each demon becomes. Later demons drop precious metals and things that cannot be found in the human sphere very easily. So, the humans have long since decided to fight each invasion until they run out of troops and then shut it down with orbital bombardment. They also have a technology that lets the troops respawn, though that is somewhat dependant on their kills/death ratio, if it falls too low (too many deaths or too few kills) you lose a life, and if you run out of lives, you’re just dead. Protagonist is a high ratio squad leader whose squad is killed by one of his own troops (it was an accident), and he loses someone close to him who has not been resurrected, though they like him were high ratio, he then needs to delve into politics to find out why some troops get killed off even when they’re good at their job. Very much a work in progress. I have the broad strokes of the story, but am not 100% sure where it’s going.
Currently I’m mostly focussed on Jinx.