There's Crows In The Garden | 3rd Life AU

After You End

Hi!! Welcome to what is essentially the afterparty of the story! It's time to extend some thank-yous and share some sneaky spoilers :DD 

Let's start off with the thank yous. Thank you everyone for reading this fic- I poured my entire heart and soul into it, so it means so so much. It doesn't matter if you only made it a chapter or two or if you reached the end- thank you all the same for giving this fic a chance :D I appreciate you guys more than you know <3 /p

Now, let's talk about what's coming next: Ancient History!!

Ancient History is my first (and probably only, let's be real) Empires SMP fic. You don't really need knowledge of Empires to read it though- I think I explained stuff out pretty well, plus I deviated from the storyline quite a bit. It covers both seasons 1 and 2, though 2 is where the story is set and also where I pretty much ignored the entire storyline in favor of my own lol. 

Basically, the plot is these two lines from Ancient History by The Crane Wives: My dreams keep digging up the bones of memories / Discarded remnants of former times, but I went a little crazy with it. Like, Pix (the main character) has an insanity arc, corruption is everywhere, I just randomly added dragon lore in a couple of chapters because why not, also I made up the most complicated magic lore to ever exist lol, and I may have had a bit of an obsession with setting chapters underground.

So yeah, it's kinda crazy.

Anyways, I promised spoilers, so here's a little excerpt from Ancient History:

Pix carefully brushes at the dirt in front of him. He hasn't found anything yet this morning, but digging up history takes time and patience. There's been times where he's spent weeks on a dig site finding nothing, and then, just when he's about to leave, he suddenly stumbles across a broken brick or an old stone spearhead. There may still be things here; he just has to uncover them.

Archeology is so soothing sometimes, Pix has realized. It's the reason he likes being out in the field so much— not that researching doesn't pique his interest; it's much the opposite— but it's so easy to sink into a rhythym when you're just brushing at the dirt for hours on end. And then, when you discover something, there's this jolt of excitement and adrenaline that Pix can't get enough of, and it makes all of the time you spent on your knees on the ground worth it.

Pix is glad to have gone into this career, as monotonous and tenuous as it can be on those days you can't sink into a rhythym while on the dig site or your research leads you to read some truly boring books. It's so rewarding and hands-on and nerdy— everything Pix loves, wrapped up into one amazing job. He almost can't imagine a world where he does anything else.

This is usually the place where the After You End would end, buttttt I have more plans (and spoilers) to share!!! Basically what happened is that I came up with a burning idea directly after chapter 5 of Ancient History, an idea I was so excited for I almost abandoned Ancient History in favor of it, but I held on . . . mostly. I've planned the concept of every chapter in this new project and also written two chapters of it already :]] and by already, I mean all of this was done before the end of August lol. Oh yeah and I also have the cover drawn. I was VERY excited :p

The idea . . . it all started out as this fleeting thought of 'what if the Oh Hellos' Four Winds albums represented the first four Life Series winners?' And then I started trying to figure out if this was possible which, before long, lead to me absolutely obsessing over this idea. And now I have a whole list of moments each song could represent going up through the first five seasons (and technically reaching Wild Life a bit at the end maybe???? We'll see)

I've been waiting since I wrote the first couple of paragraphs of this fic to share something with you guys, so here, have a spoiler:

The morning comes slowly, but it does eventually rear its glorious head. Martyn and Ren step into the soft sunlight, watching as the remaining phantoms flying around are burnt by the heat. "Are you setting up here?" Martyn asks as the scorched monsters fall to the earth. Ren seems fairly established, but he wants to make sure before he leaves— this is a good spot, and he'd be more than happy to claim it for himself.

"Yeah," says Ren. "I was thinking I might set up a shop for enchantments here. I have all the stuff for an enchanting table already; I might as well try to get some diamonds out of it, right? I'm calling it 'Ren's Enchanted Emporium'."

A seed of an idea sprouts in Martyn's head. "Why not shorten it— call it Renchanting instead?" The idea grows— its stem extending up, up, up— and then it blooms. He snaps his fingers. "And every good shop needs a slogan— what about 'Don't be a dog, be a god'! Because you have the whole dog-ear thing going on, y'know!"

Ren smiles, canines showing and sparkling. "Dude! That's perfect! You're in— you're part of the business now."

It is purely coincidence the first chapter of The Four Winds tells the story of Dogwarts lol

Also there is something I'm more excited to share than a part of chapter one, butttt I've decided to keep it a surprise, even though I'm bursting at the seams to get some feedback on it.

Anyways I think this After You End is plenty long now, so I'm going to leave it here. Have a great day, and I'll (hopefully) see you on November 19th for Ancient History!!

-Blu