Nyx Nyghtingale
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Suddenly A Succubus Ch. 16 - Reflection
🕑 Added 2024-05-26 03:14:39 +0000 UTCBook 2 has been an absolute blast to work on, and I continue to find great excuses to cover territory I never got to in Book 1.
Here, we get another scene that's set in a classroom. While I realize it's not set during class, I still count it as depicting school activities, which is always fun. Really, the most important thing here is setting up a little bit of lore for the bigger universe. Tessa mentioned a long time ago that magic works by tapping into other sources, like planes or creatures, but I've been pretty tight-lipped about what the other planes might be. It's something I've but a lot of work into behind the scenes, so it was fun to seed some of it in here.
Ending the scene, we get a cute moment of Amara reading the auras of everyone in class, followed by Kylie and Professor Luxnor. This was a scene I thought of quite a while ago, back when I was first introducing Amara's ability to read auras. I've always enjoyed finding ways to let my characters flex their abilities, especially when it pushes them to find creative uses. That being said, while Amara is still changing, I promise the process has an end goal. I have a very firm idea of where her powers will end up, and she's definitely not going to solve every problem by suddenly manifesting a cool new power.
But now it's time for a treat! One of my very favorite things, time with Chloé! This is a relationship that I'm so excited I get to showcase in Book 2. It's incredibly unique, all things considered, as Chloé is the only one in the dark about Amara's identity. This gives Chloé a really great perspective on the plot, and it was a bit of accidental genius that she ended up being the character that Amara connects with as she's trying to figure out a balance between her human and demon identities.
Also she's a silly little nerd and I just love her so much. I wanna pinch her little cheeks.
It's also great to see the volunteer effort taking shape with the delivery of the dumpster. It was a little touch that I added a bit later in the writing process, but it ended up being a fantastic bit of connective tissue.
Then it's time to spend some time with Nick, doing what he does best. He's always been the one to push Amara into using her abilities, and things are no different now. The big difference is that, back in Book 1, she simply wasn't used to having a tail and needed to learn how it worked. Now? Not only does she have the fire powers, but she's fighting some heavy feelings because of what happened at Halloween.
I've always viewed Nick as a pretty practical person, and in that respect he compliments Amara very well. She has a similar mindset, in my opinion, but it manifests in pretty different ways. Here, I'm incredibly happy with how Nick chose to approach the issue. Not only is he pushing Amara to get some practice in, but he's tying the ability to something positive by implementing the cooking. This scene really ended up being a great way to showcase that these two people really get each other.
Plus, I just love the idea of Amara staring at a piece of garlic bread and trying not to burn it. If I had fire powers, I'd be cooking all sorts of shit.
After a bit of a quicker sex scene, I also got a chance to confirm that cum does contain traces of the sexual energy that Amara feeds off of. This is honestly something I see all the time in succubus media, and I totally understand why. Still, I wanted to shift the focus away from the actual fluids of sex, and more to the feelings themselves. This also makes it simpler to explain why she can feed on both men and women, and spoiler alert, I'm a giant lesbian who likes pretty girls.
Amara then heads off to sleep, and I get to reveal what I've been building to the last few chapters. This is definitely a plot point I've been really excited to get to, and I wish I could see how it played out from an outsider's perspective. In my head, Succubi and dreams go together like two pretty girls with a U-Haul, but I'm curious if that association isn't as strong with any of my readers.
One key thing about the big reveal, that these dreams are actually Derek's, was tying them in with a bit of his backstory. I didn't want Amara to just see some random dream, and this was a great way to give a bit more context to Derek and his actions. We also get a tiny bit of dialogue from his dad, who I briefly mentioned back in Book 1, and I always enjoy tying things together like that.
I really hope you've all been enjoying Book 2 as much as I have! I'm really proud of how it's starting, and I'd like to think I've given it a distinctive vibe when compared to Book 1.
Nyx <3
