Blood & Chlorophyll Ch. 13 - Reflection

I've mentioned this before, but for many of these chapters in the middle of the story, I'm pretty paranoid about drifting too far from the cute romance that's dominated the book. This worry was more pronounced in the last chapter, which was almost entirely about sparring, leveling up, and things like that.

Thankfully, I feel this chapter strikes a much better balance, and cements that the heart of the story isn't going anywhere. Yes, we still get some training, but we also get a lot of great development in other areas.

For one thing, we get to see Kat and Alicia cuddling! This was such a soft moment that I almost wish it could have gone on longer, but it's still beautiful as what it is. I'm particularly proud of using Vampire physiology to turn a lesbian into a perpetual 'cold side of the pillow', and it's tiny touches like those that I think really make the quiet scenes feel alive and grounded.

After Alicia starts prepping space for Elias' pond, we finally get a chance to spend more time with Tabitha! She's a really exciting character in her own right, and so far we've only had a chance to see her in relation to our girls as a couple. I really wanted to give her a chance to breathe on her own, and pairing her with only Alicia for a bit made that a lot easier.

Tabitha, in addition to being a fun character that I really like, also gives me a great chance to explore aspects of the post-Change world that haven't been relevant. I wanted to explore sex work from a slightly different angle then we've seen in other Becoming Monsters stories, and camming is something that hasn't been featured yet. (Well, that's not 100% true, Tabitha does mention TheSexiestSlayer at one point. This is a character that's appeared in one of Otterly's stories, but as a one off, it was more about the characters than the camming.)

Anyways, I purposely wanted to show a more grounded side of sex work, which is why Tabitha isn't a Race designed for sex. It's just something she enjoys doing! Plus, I'm very happy with the fun anecdote that she was camming when the Change hit. Will you all get to see that at some point? Maybe if you're good :P

Once the camming discussion is done, it's time to reunite everyone again. I've spent a lot of time figuring out Katrina's spells, and it's exciting to see her finally get a chance to use them. In particular, I'm happy with the way I introduced her Message spell, though I'm not calling it Message in-universe. I'm actually going a much more pretentious route and naming all her spells after musical ideas, so this particular spell is named Lyrical Transposition.

Looks like my 12+ years of studying music theory have finally paid off!

Ending the chapter, we get our first real reminder that relationships aren't always easy. I've mentioned this before, but I feel that stories can be just as interesting if they focus on people in relationships, as opposed to ending immediately after they get together, and this scene proves my point (at least, in my opinion). I want to show that relationships take work, it's not all sunshine and rainbows just because you finally worked up the strength to kiss someone.

It's also a great bit of insight into our characters. Katrina getting too excited about System details and delving causing her to accidentally trigger some of Alicia's anxieties. Both sides of this feel very real to me, but importantly, I want to show healthy relationships in my work. They don't fight about it, they don't scream at each other, they just talk through their feelings.

I first started writing specifically because I wanted to create the types of stories I wanted to see. This normally manifests in the way I write sex scenes in Suddenly A Succubus, but that mentality is just as present here. I want to see healthy relationships, and I'm finally getting a chance to do that with my adorable little lesbians here. Hopefully it's just as enjoyable for all of you!

Nyx <3