Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW] (COMPLETE)

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Favorite story? (re-voting open)

Entertaining Possibilities
0
No votes
Two of a Kind
1
33%
Full House
1
33%
Dead of Night
0
No votes
Castling
0
No votes
Fool's Mate
1
33%
About That Apron
0
No votes
Adult Humor
0
No votes
The Day Before Her Birthday
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No votes
 
Total votes: 3

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AndreRhineDavis
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Re: Entertaining Possibilities: A Twokinds Smut [NSFW]

#16 Post by AndreRhineDavis »

That was an interesting read. I quite liked it :)
But yeah, the fact that everyone was "he" did make it a bit hard at times to follow who was being referred to.

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Re: Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW]

#17 Post by amenon »

Well, here we are. If you ever thought to yourself: 'Gee-whiz, I sure wish amenon would write some more Twokinds stuff', you're in luck. If you didn't, well, we're stuck with it it anyway:

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There's a foreword in the book this time -- and yes, it quite arguably is a book this time, if not an epic -- so I won't repeat myself here, except to say that there are actually two stories, both direct sequels to Entertaining Possibilities. I'm releasing this on February 12th, two days before Valentine's Day... and you could say that the first story is for tomorrow, the second for the day after.

Make of that what you will.

As always, if you read my stuff and it leaves you wanting to say something -- be it good, bad, or mixed -- I would love to hear it, either via this thread or PM. Reader reactions are the only thing that can tell me what the story is actually doing, as opposed to what I intended it to. But whether you comment or not, if you read it, or give it a chance -- thank you. Words are written to be read.

I would also like to collect a bunch of recommendations and/or condemnations into the OP and/or this post, to help people figure out if this is something they want to look at. Think cover blurbs, or testimonials. If you'd like to submit one, you can mark it as such in your post, or PM me. They can be humorous or serious, for or against, but they can't have anything I consider a spoiler (and I'm pretty strict!)

Relatedly, untagged spoilers are welcome in the thread. If there is a thread beyond this post, assume it has spoilers.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be over here not writing. If anybody sees me pick up a pen, please sit on me.

Edit: And here's my marketing shuffles for this one, for posterity, linked for size:
The first
The second
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Re: Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW]

#18 Post by avwolf »

Well, I wish I'd gotten here a little closer to Half-Price Chocolate Eve instead of a month and a half late. :? Ah well, life is as life does.

First, the pacing difference between the two stories (or at least between Two of a Kind and the beginning of Full House) is intense. I'm not going to complain though, because just when I ran out of breath in Full House, you dropped into the KeithxNatani scene and slowed down for me to catch myself. Actually, while the beginning was the biggest and most definite pacing variance, you actually did a really good job of alternating fast and slow throughout the work. Which helped a lot with the otherwise staggering length (you weren't kidding about "book"). There's a little of everything in there, so, to address my fellow readers, if you're just not into the scene at present, keep reading, you're sure to find one that suits your fancy. :P

Thank you, my friend, for the shout-out, both here and in the foreword. I'll make sure to conceptualize you and Schrodinger as opposing shoulder consciences, throttling each other over which story I should be working on when I have time to write. =P

So on to my story-specific comments; I reserve the right to add to these in the future.
Two of a Kind:
I will forever be pleased and amused by "That's actually an interesting legal question," being Alaric's response to the question of if he is alive. That captures our dear Master General so very well. As you mention both in this story and in Full House, the legal repercussions for a living dead Basitin (at least one who is the variety of living dead that Alaric qualifies for and not the sort I joked about when saying TwoKinds would become Left2Die) are significant and strange. And probably very specific. I can imagine the sorts of legal oddities; much like how in my home state of Nebraska, we draw a distinction between laws specifying "18 and over" and "over the age of 18" even though most states don't; which puts 18-year-old people in a curious legal position. I'm sure the Basitin laws have some which interpret to "living" and some which cover "all" and possibly even yet others which cover the acts attributable to the dead. (Particularly since they culturally have the whole "died in surgery after a battle counts as dying in the battle for honor purposes" thing going on.)

I still get a chuckle out of "Post-Master General." (For those following along at home, I got to see an early draft of the work that included that line. And when I say "draft" I mean "those first couple pages before anything really happens.") It's a delightful turn of phrase. And I always laugh at "How prepared would you say you feel right now." Thank you. Like most of us, I do enjoy reading about myself. Or things I made up, anyway.

"The thought...did enter Alaric's mind but never got very far." I like the picture that paints. See, that's how you can tell that you wrote this and I did not: I'd have fallen in love with that language and burned a paragraph describing the thought wandering, lost, into Alaric's mind, and then fleeing quickly like someone who just realized they'd accidentally gotten off the bus in Innsmouth.

A more critical note: "Keith smiled at him, and he would have followed him anywhere." Who is the subject and who is the object of the subordinate clause here? If I don't miss the point, you start with Keith as subject and Alaric as object in the first clause and then swap to Alaric as the subject and Keith as the object in the second clause, but trust me, it's not obvious. Over all, Knot Too Late as a whole has fewer confusing passages than Entertaining Possibilities, but they still crop up occasionally. Full House reserves most of them for the KeithxAlaricxZen scene.

Speaking of Full House:
I guess people do carve granite, but I was under the impression that it was too hard of a stone to really get great detail out of. "Hardness" jokes notwithstanding, of course. I still would have changed "granite" for "marble" and "marble" for "limestone."

I wasn't too sure about your handling of Alaric at the beginning, but your explanation of his behavior later was solid and going back it makes sense. That is certainly Alaric appropriate: he's the sort of character that one really should only be able to figure out in retrospect. On the whole, the characterizations became stronger as the story progressed; starting out somewhat weaker at the beginning than they were in Two of Kind but arguably ending stronger.

The thing that struck me the most is that this is all inside jokes! I mean, not just between you and me -- they're inside to the forum in general; but most of them are so deep that I don't think there's all that many active users who are still on the inside. :P The reference to Sable's "Keith is a girl" argument? Delicious! Even the Natani and Maddie scene? So many people have told me not to do that in DfO! And then you go and do it; I suppose because you think that way I don't have to. :P (And of course, the inclusion of Seff's gift from the King...) I'm not mentioning everything I caught here, and I'm sure I missed more than a few (partially because I know you have a fresher remembrance of the forum's past, and partially because I believe your memory and wit are sharper than mine). Suffice to say, I got some really good laughs out of the story, and generally in between the, ah, sexy-times at appropriate moments. I wish I could call them all out explicitly like I did above, but unfortunately, I was reading the story on my kindle on an airplane and didn't have a good way to take specific notes.

I won't argue that any of the scenes are unnecessary: they are all important to the completion of the whole. That said, Full House is so long... I didn't read a lot of the scenes as closely as I should have because, well, for one thing I was reading in more-or-less public and for more than fifteen minute intervals (so to speak ;)), and partially because you've got a little something for everybody and as a result there's so much there. And that includes a lot of cuddling and emotional intimacy for yourself. :D I wouldn't change it; I'm not really complaining, but it's worth it for readers to remember: set aside plenty of time if you want to read it in more than little chunks. Though it does have some good breakpoints in it, so it's not hard to pick it up and put it back down when necessary.

On the whole some good work, amenon, and a pleasure to read. Thank you! :grin:
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Re: Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW]

#19 Post by amenon »

avwolf wrote:Well, I wish I'd gotten here a little closer to Half-Price Chocolate Eve instead of a month and a half late. :? Ah well, life is as life does.
The second Guinness I had made it two days past its sell-by, too, but to be fair that's mostly on me for repurposing older stock :P Was still tasty, though!

Thank you for your readership, and your post. Both are ever appreciated. I've decided I'll still try to be coy about the work, even in the face of your presence -- though there a few specific replies below. But coy or not, I see no harm in reiterating prompts that are already implicit in the work, and so I ask you: Which timeline is superior? EP/ToaK, or EP/FH?

avwolf wrote:A more critical note: "Keith smiled at him, and he would have followed him anywhere."
Gah, mea culpa. I think I know what went wrong with that sentence. I liked the idea, so I didn't want to rewrite it, and 'Keith smiled at him, and [Alaric] would have followed him anywhere.' is also somewhat broken, so I didn't want to do that. But I should have either rewritten it, or bit the bullet and went for 'Keith smiled at [Alaric], and [Alaric] would have followed him anywhere.' Which... I probably never even considered, but actually doesn't feel awful to me now that I look at it. Certainly preferable.

I'll remember it if I ever have the occasion to do editing, which... I might. To that end, please call out all the clunk that you wish to.
avwolf wrote:I guess people do carve granite, but I was under the impression that it was too hard of a stone to really get great detail out of. "Hardness" jokes notwithstanding, of course. I still would have changed "granite" for "marble" and "marble" for "limestone."
Nope, definitely granite!
avwolf wrote:The thing that struck me the most is that this is all inside jokes!
I would like the record to show it isn't all inside jokes, and that I'm not gratuitous with them.

Unless it is, or I am, in which case... eh, I'll call it worth it :P
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Re: Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW]

#20 Post by avwolf »

Oh, you wanted a cover quote. "Knot Too Late a pair of salacious tent-poles, stiffly spit-roasting the expectations of any who thought amenon's sophomore slash would beat around the bush."
amenon wrote:Thank you for your readership, and your post. Both are ever appreciated. I've decided I'll still try to be coy about the work, even in the face of your presence -- though there a few specific replies below. But coy or not, I see no harm in reiterating prompts that are already implicit in the work, and so I ask you: Which timeline is superior? EP/ToaK, or EP/FH?
Hmm. They both have things to recommend themselves, but I think I favor the bittersweetness of Two of a Kind. I kind of prefer it's slower moving timeline -- Keith and Alaric's projects both have a lot of groundwork involved in them, and that timeline has given them time to establish that groundwork. Besides, I like Alaric's introduction there better. Full House has something for everybody ("something that's horny, no one that's lonely, something for everyone a slash-fic tonight!"), and from the perspective of "being slashfiction," it's probably the winner there. :P And of course, it's got your specialty happy ending for everyone. But like I said, I think I like the bittersweet ending to the sweet one. Tugs more at my heartstrings.
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Re: Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW]

#21 Post by The Rookie »

Damn it, Amenon! I didn't come here to feel feelings :x

I legit felt tears swelling while I was reading about Zen+Nat's farewell present and it's significance to Kieth. Why you gotta go and do that to me (;_;)
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Re: Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW]

#22 Post by Dadrobit »

:mrgrin: :mrgrin: :mrgrin:

Thanks for the shout-out! My family got a good kick outta it.

Alas, I feel wholly inadequate in my inability to contribute anything of worthy substance as even a cover quote in the face of such a monumental piece of literary tour de force.
The Rookie wrote:Damn it, Amenon! I didn't come here to feel feelings :x

I legit felt tears swelling while I was reading about Zen+Nat's farewell present and it's significance to Kieth. Why you gotta go and do that to me (;_;)
True story:
Dadrobit while reading that first paragraph of Two of a Kind wrote: *Sniff Sniff* I'm not out of tears either Keith.... *Weeps uncontrollably*
For sure though, crazy good read. It made my work day that much more..... Interesting. :mrgrin:

Got a question. Obviously Two of a Kind is a much more serious piece, but did you go into it with that in mind? Or did you come upon that tone after getting into it and feeling it would be too, (for lack of a better term) 'tacky' to try and force the same level of extreme sensuality on Kieth after losing Natani and being confronted by his past so abruptly?
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Re: Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW]

#23 Post by amenon »

For anyone just randomly clicking in: This thread is in full spoilers mode. So if Twokinds smutfic sounds like your thing, but spoilers don't, direct your attention to the start of the thread!
avwolf wrote:Oh, you wanted a cover quote. "Knot Too Late a pair of salacious tent-poles, stiffly spit-roasting the expectations of any who thought amenon's sophomore slash would beat around the bush."
The Rookie wrote:Damn it, Amenon! I didn't come here to feel feelings :x
Dadrobit wrote:Alas, I feel wholly inadequate in my inability to contribute anything of worthy substance as even a cover quote in the face of such a monumental piece of literary tour de force.
Thanks for these, you three :grin:

If anyone's got a good one waiting in the wings, I'm always open for more! And if someone is feeling shy, being '— Anonymous' is fine too!
avwolf wrote:But like I said, I think I like the bittersweet ending to the sweet one. Tugs more at my heartstrings.
Dadrobit wrote:
The Rookie wrote:I legit felt tears swelling while I was reading about Zen+Nat's farewell present and it's significance to Kieth. Why you gotta go and do that to me (;_;)
True story:
Dadrobit while reading that first paragraph of Two of a Kind wrote: *Sniff Sniff* I'm not out of tears either Keith.... *Weeps uncontrollably*
And thanks for these, as well. It's nice to have some reassurance that ToaK isn't just incredibly rude.
Dadrobit wrote:Got a question. Obviously Two of a Kind is a much more serious piece, but did you go into it with that in mind? Or did you come upon that tone after getting into it and feeling it would be too, (for lack of a better term) 'tacky' to try and force the same level of extreme sensuality on Kieth after losing Natani and being confronted by his past so abruptly?
I always know the main structure before there are any words on the page. What you say is actually the only reason I wanted to have a sex scene in there, and pretty seriously considered it; to show that it didn't have to be 'tacky'. But I still wanted these specific characters more than I wanted to make that point, and so the story is sexless. You could say it's one bit of inadvertent avwolf-provocation that didn't quite pan out :P

For the record, it wouldn't have been a flashy scene. Probably mutual masturbation (in the 'each other' sense), in bed, in the dark. Feel free to mentally edit that in if you want. It's like one, maybe two stories over at most :P (So in a sense, you're also exactly right; it would never have been 'the same level of extreme sensuality', at least without taking the time to ramp up. And I just realized you might not have even been using that as a euphemism, but the answer goes either way :grin:)



By way of news, I've been working on the long-time-coming edit of Entertaining Possibilities, and it kinda expanded into doing another copyedit on (Knot) Too Late as well. I'm not changing any of my intended meanings, just trying to increase readability. For instance, that line avwolf called out:
avwolf wrote:A more critical note: "Keith smiled at him, and he would have followed him anywhere."
Now reads "Keith smiled in response, and Nick would have followed him anywhere."

Anyway, that's what I've been working on, and I got a very good start on it... oh, three weeks ago. Suffice to say that life has been getting in the way :P But I figured I might as well give myself an excuse to take a bit longer, by asking for help! I'm pretty confident I can get this finished next weekend, so that gives all y'all out there one week to call out clunk in any of the stories, and maybe see it addressed! This is a really subjective thing, but basically I just want to know if there was some sentence or section that was hard to figure out, or that threw you out of the story in some other way.

Oh, and there will be a little something extra as well, once I'm done. Don't expect a new story though, those are still at least a ways out :P
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Re: Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW]

#24 Post by Schrodinger »

You want a cover quote? "Well, I got wood." How about that?
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Re: Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW]

#25 Post by amenon »

Schrodinger wrote:You want a cover quote? "Well, I got wood." How about that?
Yeah, that's... that's about perfect :grin:
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Re: Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW]

#26 Post by anonfox123 »

After much delay, I finally gave all these a read. Pretty good, some character interpretations that were unexpected, but overall quite nice! (And many feels were had with Too Late)

Only point of complaint is the times where too many pronouns were bouncing around and I couldn't tell who was doing what to who. Those parts were kinda hard to read.
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Re: Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW]

#27 Post by amenon »

After much delay, I finally gave all these a read. Pretty good, some character interpretations that were unexpected, but overall quite nice! (And many feels were had with Too Late)
Thank you for reading! But... that's such perfect author bait (;_;) Which character interpretations? (And anyone else reading this, feel free to chime in as well!)
Only point of complaint is the times where too many pronouns were bouncing around and I couldn't tell who was doing what to who. Those parts were kinda hard to read.
Well, you'll be happy to know that this is the post announcing the re-edited re-release... yeah, sorry about the timing :P

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So! EP now has a proper second edition, KTL has also been edited, and there's a few extra bits.

Changes!
  • Entertaining Possibilities, second edition! Edited for clarity, rather than meaning, but it's a pretty good excuse for a reread, especially if you read it near the original release. It should be a good bit clearer now.
  • (Knot) Too Late got a last+1th copyedit pass. Much fewer changes than in EP, so I'm not calling it a new edition.
  • Releasing The Little Pink Book and The Little Blue Book! Both contain a part of a part of Full House, pulled out for a different reading experience. No points for guessing what these are :P There's a bit of new bridging content, in case you need an excuse to check them out.
  • A survey poll! Please go click some boxes at the top of the thread. Re-votes are open, so you can update your answers if the situation changes. (Hoping to trap some completionists :P)
  • New format! Now also available in AZW3, which is the Kindle format. If someone has an older Kindle and needs a .mobi, I'll do it if you'll tell me if it looks okay. Working blind isn't the greatest.
  • Typesetting changes! Everything is now available in justified (aka book-style; both margins flush) by default. Left-aligned (ragged right edge) versions are also available if you look at the bottom of the page, should you prefer that / find the quality of the typesetting to be morally unacceptable.
  • The PDFs look a lot better now! I think I managed to finally get around all of the kerning issues. For a laugh -- or a cry -- compare the first edition of EP (also available in the extras) with the second one S:P KTL was much less tragic on release, but has also seen considerable improvement.
Thank you to everyone who has read or will read these. Bonus points if you let me know what you thought, extra-bonus points if you do it here! The marketing will continue until I see actual discussion (or alternatively, give up :P)

And finally, a very great thanks to avwolf for hosting my by-now-ridiculous collection of files. Thank you, thank you, thank you. (Everyone go read Desire for Orders and tell him to write more.)
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EP# 4 and Trust! [SFW works in an NSFW thread]

#28 Post by amenon »

Posting two new stories! The first one is part of the EP sequence, but the second one is standalone. Both are SFW, and both are inline below.


First up, we have Entertaining Possibilities #4: Dead of Night. 1700 words. SFW. Only read this if you have read all previous EP works. And if you thought Two of a Kind was too much... you might want to skip this one. If you choose to venture forth, there's a box of hankies on the sideboard.

Edit/note: Snipped out of the thread now that it's been properly published. You can find this story as the first one in Going Far.



Next up, we have a story that just sort of... happened a few weeks ago, for reasons that are both complicated and stupid. Not related to anything else I've written, though technically it could be an EP prequel of sorts. Set quite close to current events in the comic. No hankies necessary.

Trust. 3600 words. SFW.

Edit/note: Also snipped out! You can find it on dA, FA or SoFurry.



If you liked Trust, it's probably thanks to my beta readers. I won't out any of you, but feel free to step forward and either claim some credit or disown the finished product :P I owe you all. (Yes, even you.)


I am also still asking for feedback on KTL in general and Full House in specific. I realize that story #4 is up there, but I actually wrote it nearly a year ago. #5 is the one I could use more data for, since it's the sequel/epilogue to Full House.
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Re: Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW]

#29 Post by avwolf »

I haven't read the new version of Trust yet (though I like where the last line ended up, it's stronger than it was in the draft I got to read), but Dead of Night is very good. It's just the cure if you've been feeling simply too happy lately. Very powerful work. I feel like it was important to be written, now that I've read it, but I guarantee you, I'd never ever have been able to write anything like it myself. It just...Gets you right here. Thanks, amenon.
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Re: Entertaining Possibilities (and sequels!) - Twokinds Smuts - [NSFW]

#30 Post by amenon »

avwolf wrote:[...], but Dead of Night is very good. It's just the cure if you've been feeling simply too happy lately. Very powerful work. I feel like it was important to be written, now that I've read it, but I guarantee you, I'd never ever have been able to write anything like it myself. It just...Gets you right here. Thanks, amenon.
So I've been turning this around in my head. I understand why you would not have written Entertaining Possibilities, as you said back in the day -- possibly also could not have, in the sense that the story was probably in a blind spot for you -- but why would you "never ever have been able to write anything like [Dead of Night]"?
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