The Quiet Female Blinks. Did These Two Draw The Short Straws Of Their Respective Species? She Was A Writer

That feeling when you finally give your main character a birthplace after doing quite a bit of other things for that character-

Seriously Hades didn't have a birthplace that people outside her Clan could refer to for quite a while

She was born somewhere, but it didn't exist in the context of the world for a bit. Her Clan never named itself (Because it is not important for them to be named as a group). Quite a fun thing.

Take over. Control everything. He is... ah... very creepily attracted to the main character. He wants to rule the world with her at his side and make her carry his children. Which is a bit hard considering she hates him and would hate him even more if he did something that would harm her brothers.

And he wants to see her eyes uncovered, which would kill him. Not the seeing her eyes part, but the her seeing him without her eyes covered.

Magic system

How many WIPs

And

Challenges you have faced with your WIPs

Thank you for the ask <333

There's an essay incoming, beware

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How Many WIPs?

I have no less than four novel-intended wips (Flamebearer, A Healing for the Birds, Soulswapped and the Lady's Lament), plus a few shorter works (The Disappearance of Charimone Eschredaine, [Succession of the Underground*] and [The Assassin's Promise*]) and a developing anthology of certain characters' backstories (This Blood-Stained Charcuterie)

*Placeholders; I've no clue what to call them yet

Challenges Faced With WIPs

A Healing for the Birds:

The main challenge with this is dealing with all the plot threads. One thing that has remained consistent even after all the changes since the first ever iteration of this wip (it used to be called Seafarer, then Obsidian Sapphires, and now this), is there being loads of plot threads. The difference is now those plot threads are more centred around the Allaitri Chalice and the political chaos of it being unearthed.

Up until recently, I wasn't sure what the core of the story was, but now I know. It centres around familiar ties and the things that people do in the name of love. (Sounds a bit corny out of context, though lol)

Flamebearer

I put this one on hold because I know it's going to be complex due to the heavy political themes in this. Unlike A Healing for the Birds, where the political situation is a little bit lighter and more petty, in a sense, the political scene is very charged here. There's a lot of resentment pointed towards the royal family due to things like Serrantine trying to rejoin Selade or the legacy of the Twenty-Year Winter, leading to unrest, death, grief, a lot more sombre and complex issues to deal with. I hope to be more confident in my writing so I can do Flamebearer justice, I find people seem to really like the premise and starting ideas, its associated Flash Friday pieces do quite well 😅

Soulswapped

Again, another wip put on ice to focus on the bird wip. I do want to get back to this at some stage, I have some vague ideas for how I want it to play out. I don't envision it to be as long as the two above, because its concept (the main character has to fight her way out of jail and the court it's in) is more constrained. There's nowhere near the amount of plot strings here. (The darker intrigue happens around the end/slightly thereafter 👀)

The Lady's Lament

I do not have experience writing contemporary stuff, which I think is what made it hard to start it. The concept's there, easy enough, but it's just actually sitting down and planning it that's the main thing.

Another challenge that is unique for this one to an extent, is the presence of Gaeilge here. The book is intended to be an ode to Irish culture, and if I was to complete it, I do intend for there to be a Gaeilge translation.

This Blood-Stained Charcuterie

One word: timeline. The setting for this collection has thousands of years worth of history, and so the challenge is figuring out who killed who and when. And not to mention all the stuff going on in the background, some of it is more influential than others.

The Magic System

Basically, it's based on the idea of magic being a biological substance present in the world. Most living things have a tolerance for it, but not all living things can actively use it.

Even then, there's two broad categories; faerie creatures, whom rely on simpler magic like moving things or simple tricks, and then the faeries/Carithaikh [start with one fae/one human parent, subsequent generations by any combination that isn't two faeries; these people can also be dubbed as witches], who can perform magic in a wide variety of ways.

Most people are born with an affinity to an element (such as fire, plant, water/ice, air, light, shadow, blood, lightning, dust, rock, metal, etc), which is then honed as the person gets older. It is also possible to learn certain elements, but some are harder than others, going on into near-impossible (e.g, it's hard to learn fire if one doesn't have an affinity for it [the genes of those who do are adapted to prevent burns and manage the heat more efficiently], but water is fairly easy to learn).

Another aspect that some people have but is much less common, are skill-based abilities. Shapeshifting and teleporting are the most common ones, but there's also a select few who can weave souls or see/interact with the domain of the spirits. Those last two are about one or few in a generation. (And interestingly, in Helinda there's no records of anyone who can interact with the spirit world, likely because Helindians burn their dead!)

But sometimes you'll get people with bespoke abilities. Some are merely unusual powers, such as purple fire, wood manipulation, blending with the shadows etc.

Others, are actual divine elements. They manifest as fire, light or water, and usage of then can have catastrophic effects. If the user doesn't die after using divine magic, it can cause things such as blindness, burns, nerve damage/neuropathy, constant dehydration, reduced magical abilities/stamina, chronic fatigue and/or other symptoms.

If the user has a part of a deity's soul entwined with them, then the effects are mitigated to an extent. (It occurs frequently with Fate's reprisals [her element is blue fire])

And then, there's also the external systems. These rely on the magic of the world instead of/as well as the user's. Things like runes, languages, diagrams, items, gestures and/or other tangible things are used for them.

These systems vary from place to place and between cultures, they're like programming languages in a sense. Each system has strengths and weaknesses.

For instance, Helinda's five-pointed star is great if you are a) in Helinda [or Morilaste]** b) looking to do things like a locating or summoning* spell, as well as anything relating to Helindian geography. It's great with maps!

However, it's not great for highly complex spells with lots of rules. That's where Seldaika's system shines. It has a four-pointed star, but the main mode of it is its language. It's a spell language, the grammar and vocabularly are tailor-made to support spells. Intention is also important, which is an aid in differentiating normal speech from a spell. Gestures also come into play, as do wands (syrchels), which are used as social indicators and statements of magical intent as well as to apply runes.

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*summoning items is perfectly fine, as long as it's not someone else's item. Summoning people/spirits is illegal under Helindian law

**there's a decent amount of lore underpinning the reason for this phenomenon

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I'm going to end it here, I hope you enjoyed it :D

Late Seven Sentence Sunday

Tagged by: @illarian-rambling

Rules: Post seven sentences from what you've been working on

Before I post the sentences, I am going to apologize for the late response (Seriously, two days? I must be lazy-). The real reason is that I never got the notification or accidentally cleared it before I could notice. I'll do better next time. Or turn it into fourteen sentence Sunday. Who knows.

Also these seven sentences are not the ones directly after the ones for my last post. Just from a random point. (Though I should have done seven sentences of lore because I was last working on lore for this story/book thing-)

"Father of the Underworld, I thank you. I will be traveling for a while and won't be able to pray during that time, but I ask that you protect me on my journey beyond my Clan just as you have during my life with my Clan," Hades lowers her head, feeling the usual chill of the Underworld that she gets when she prays to her personal god. "I need to take this shrine apart for now, but I will rebuild it in my new home. Thank you for your protection, Lord Hades."

She raises her head as the chill fades, her eyes settling on the amulet that hangs from her shrine. It symbolizes her connection to her personal god with a pendent of a bident with Cerberus' three heads resting between the prongs and a narcissus flower resting atop the center head, a blending of three symbols that represent Hades.

Just as I did last week, I am not tagging people because I am still new to this.

If you send ask from this, please include question and number/emoji. Save me the guessing game.

An ask game for writers to procrastinate working on you WIP(s)

I am also procrastinating actually writing. If you’ve multiple works in progress you can give a different answer every time!

🦈Tell us the name of your/ one of your WIP(s)

🍄Decriscribe your wip/one of your wips in the format of “___ + ___ =___”  

🌍What tags or warnings will your / one of your wip(s) need if you intend to share it?

🧭An alternative title to your/ one of your WIP(s)?

⚠️Which wip your most likely to finish or update next?

💾What is your document of your wip/ a wip called? (not the stories actual title but what you’ve saved it as)

🖍Post Any sentence from your wip

♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP

🤔What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet?

🤡How many Wips are you actively working on?

🛠Is there a scene or anything in the WIP you are struggling with right now?

❤️Not a question, just a second kudos to send.

Enjoy!

Happy STS! What's the best gift your OC has ever recieved?

I forgot to say happy birthday to you- Apologies-

Anyway, gift giving is rare in the setting of Stars of the Sky, especially where Hades grew up since the lifespan of humans there is so much longer and the Kingdom/general area has a tradition of giving gifts to the living when someone dies. So Hades has received gifts on two occasions, both of which were occasions where her parents died. One of the gifts she got when her mother died from family (aside from having to move in with her aunt and uncle) was a very very shiny dagger with phrases related to Hades (Hades' personal God) and Zeus (Her mother's Personal God) on the blade. She carries it everywhere with her, even if you can't see it. She doesn't even use it. She also doesn't exactly follow the gift giving tradition that much. She likes giving gifts.

Eros (Who, believe it or not, is not a second main character, I just like talking about him as though he is) receives gifts more often than Hades due to being a bit of a player. But his favorite gifts are a collection of gems Hades gives him. Not because people around them died, she just felt like it.

Ares' favorite gift was just the knowledge that somewhere out there, there is a woman with silver hair, black eyes, and a penchant for getting in his way. I don't exactly know why, but he likes the challenge.

Zeus (the Named, not the God) was once gifted lucky bamboo. He lives it and still has it and if you touch his bamboo in any wrong way, you are likely to lose the hand.

I know her skin looks tan, but that's mostly because I hate trying to make skin color accurate.

Also, I made these years ago. The sitting pose was stolen, I think? Obviously, her design has changed slightly, but the overall look is there. One is cropped to hide her name because I can.

My main oc has me bsing my way through blacksmithing...

Anyway, she is a lovely, tall young woman who finds a passion in being aggressively protective of things, like her family or a village/community. Her narration reveals that she sees herself as disposable, which is also why I make a certain narration choice with her that becomes quite apparent initially. As her view of herself shifts from negative to positive, she starts seeing herself as a main character, which shows in the narration style.

She has a power she despises despite using it when she needs to--on animals, not people. She got traumatized the one time that happened. She covers her eyes due to her power, although she can still see. It's just that a thin cloth prevents her power from harming others. Anyway, her senses are extremely enhanced because of her power, leading to her narration mentioning her hearing sounds and such more often than not.

She got used by her birth world, which led to her fleeing and living in the woods for a year (which, in her world, is equivalent to two of our years). After which, she is brought to her chosen world. She's my little baby.

So I've written fanfiction in the past. MHA fanfiction, Jujutsu Kaisen, other anime that are currently slipping my brain. So I was thinking... there is one MHA fanfiction I've written (and abandoned) with an absolutely brutal scene. The MC, in the second chapter (Or maybe third? I frame it as second.) of his story, gets brutalized. A major part of his quirk gets ripped off/out. He has wings. you'd think I should put had, but he has a second quirk and it's all fine. But the point is, I was exploring what I am willing to do to my characters. I was exploring how far I would go in an attempt to ruin the life of my own characters. How much detail would I put in a scene that I don't usually write.

Just a forewarning, the scene is describing a major injury. Blood and limbs getting ripped off level violence. If people are interested in the scene, I will hide the scene, naturally, but this is for the possibility of people voting yes who don't like scenes like that.

Thanks for the tag, @illarian-rambling :>

Have Hades and her school dorm room (except she'd definitely have a few weapons in her room. Canonically, they are hiding under her bed.) And she definitely wasn't pictured immediately after a fight. Totally not. She just has strawberry jelly on her cheek! And that's a very fancy and large butter knife! Not a sword!

I sneaky tag @rumeysawrites :>

character + their room tag!

first time I’ve ever made one of these games so!

rules: make a character with this picrew, then make that character’s room (if they have one—if no then just imagine one up) with this one! Feel free to go more in depth about what’s in their room, or just about the character in general. Or just post the pictures and be done with it! It’s your choice.

yahoo it’s a Kai time ✨

As some of yall know, Kaiden is the main character of my WIP Interwoven! She decorates her room pretty sparsely, but I wasn’t able to add in any of the lil shells and rocks she collects. Either way, she has a bunch of those, plus records and mythology books, and that little pillow on the bed was something I thought fit her. She needs her silly lil pillow ok i don’t make the rules.

feel free to either reblog this with your own picrews or make a separate post

(psssst tag me if you make another one I wanna seeeee)

without further ado, I’ll make this an Open Tag as well as tagging the Tag Game List! Lemme know if you’d like on/off via dm:

@sableglass @dioles-writes @viridis-icithus @allaboutmagic @paeliae-occasionally

@inky-anathemata @vsnotresponding @nightlylaments @ancientmyth

@thebookishkiwi @verdant-mainframe @threedaysgross @fifis-corner @bamber344

@seafloor509 @viwritesthings @rumeysawrites @pizzamanstan

@vesanal @an-indecisive-nerd @the-ellia-west @willtheweaver @write-with-will

and I’m also gonna go ahead and tag @leahnardo-da-veggie (you were interested :D) @cepheusgalaxy and @teratheo (feel like you’d enjoy this ^^)

have fun!