Preview on some other projects! (cw; xenomorph discussion)

(To reiterate on the title, this blog post mentions some graphic/gory imagery relating to Xenomorphs. While the fic I'm working on doesn't involve those things, I still need to mention them to explain the gist of the fic in a smooth way)

While I'm working my way through future Cultivation content, I've been using my downtime to work on two other ideas I have for fanfics! Both are based in AUs I've juggled and worked on for months (almost years at this point), and I've finally been actually drawing and starting to write stuff for them. Here's a little teaser;

Okay, the first AU idea for a fic I'm working on involves things called xenoquines, which are just... well, xenomorphs if they came from ponies. The gist of the setting is that Twilight is patient zero, and finds a way to safely remove chestbursters before they, y'know, chestburst. The fic follows the growth and development of this lady, Scratch.

Xenomorphs copy so much from their hosts; physical traits, mostly. But what happens when a xenomorph copies traits from a creature to whom friendship and magic are such physical forces that they can be made manifest? You get a xenomorph with the capacity for free thought and individuality. And this fic follows that. That's all I'll say on the matter; I've written a 1500 or-so word preview of the fic in question, which you can check out here. Warning, it's a little experimental, and again, talks about some grisly stuff (Writing from the perspective of a facehugger, then chestburster, is definitely weird, but I hope I pulled it off right). I'd love to hear some input, though!

I so far have six xenoquines designed, and I'm working on a proper species sheet; I have a lot of specific ideas about them, and it'd be cool to see how other people like the buggers. I'll keep you all posted!

The second idea I'm working on is a... bit of a tone shift from both of these. Shifting away from SFW Slice of life and apocalyptic adventure, the other AU idea I have is a little more... adult. I won't go too deep into adult themes here, but the gist is that it's a transformation-themed adult story set in an AU post-show timeline, where a young mare named CiCi with the peculiar ability to 'reset' herself to a checkpoint gives her the freedom to indulge in transforming herself and reaching 'dead end' paths in her story.

However, when Twilight Sparkle- someone CiCi has a huge crush on- gets dragged into her Checkpoint ability, CiCi has to figure out exactly how to explain to the princess of like, everything what the hell is going on, right as a bunch of funky TF shenanigans start to happen. Much more light in general themes, much more comedic, fun, and sexy; This story should be a fun one. No preview for this one yet, it's the project I'm taking the longest to get properly started on because it's been a while since I wrote adult content.

Here's a little preview of one of the mane six I've been working on; Fluttershy, who overcame her nerves and became a brash, confident monster-tamer. Really love this design.

Anyway yeah! that's what I've been doing. Hopefully I'll have more Cultivation chapters up soon!