Oo A Tag

⛲️ - Is there anything [character] would be tempted to change if they went back in time?

Hades wouldn't want to go back in time initially. Time happens and all that. But after she discovers her abilities as a God-named of Hades, she'd probably try to use her powers to give her mother a bit more time. She respects that people die and all that, and that death has to happen, but she was quite close to her mother and so would try to give herself a few more days with her mother alive. She would not change how she lost her father, since he died in battle, which is more honorable than dying to a disease that, in universe, doesn't have a name, just symptoms.

I am in a weird state. I want to do three different things for my current story. Each requires different levels of thought and different processes in general.

Which sounds fine. Just do them one at a time, right?

Wrong.

I want to do these three things all at once. I lack the number of brains and arms for that. And lack the laptop amount for that. I can't write on two different tabs at once on the same laptop. I also can't write in a notebook and type on a computer at the same time.

And none of the three things involve writing the actual story. I have the better part of two chapters written. I'm just trying to get lore and settings written out so I can reference these things.

My brain is just absurdly all over the place.

To explain the different processes thing

-I write my lore related things in a notebook. A notebook that is strangely perfectly themed for the story I am writing. Some setting things get mentioned, but they aren't the focus of the notebook. Plot things also go here. Except I don't write outlines for plot things. I know what I want to happen and don't plan things. Yes, it becomes a discombobulated mess.

-I do character profiles on my laptop. It is very easy to reference while writing. Just flip between tabs. Obviously, I could also write my lore on my laptop, but I personally like having the lore in a notebook because I can make myself a table of contents and use plastic tabs to note the themes of certain parts for the story.

-I am thinking of having more general worldbuilding that is unrelated to lore be done on my laptop. Yes, this is my admission that I don't do worldbuilding often. I just have ideas and write them out with no planning. But I realize that that process won't work as easily for the type of story I am currently writing.

So for this poll, world building would be mostly settings, linguistic things, ecosystem things, and other things that would fall under this category aside from lore.

Lore would be the history of the world, mythological/religious things, and get into detail on the God-named and unnamed and their differences.

Character profiles would, as one could guess, would be character information compiled into a headache-inducing mess, especially since I don't actually have locations fully made (some exist but are unnamed, others are named and maybe exist as a concept without specifics, and others are vague ideas without names or specifics)

You'd think with that idea in mind, I would want to world build more, but I... I want to do all of these things at once

I wanted those to be alphabetical. I am a chaos gremlin.

Please could you recreate the cake poll(the one with vanilla extract iykwim) and tell people to vote to make the exact same percentages as in the old one?

Thanks!!

(am i making this in the hopes of settling the debate as to whether i'm a catboy or a dogboy? perhaps)

Hello!

Hello! What brings you to my asks?

ELLIPSUS MY BELOVED :>

Hey writers,

What are some great websites you've found that you can write on them like google docs without the worry of ai training?

I want to steer away from docs but the only other thing I can think of is using drafts here on tumblr to save my work and I really don't want to do that. And I don't have money to pay for word processors.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Have art

Hello!

Hello! What brings you to my asks?

Better than what I imagine the requirements of invoking anti-Dark-God magic are. (Who would want to recite a whole incantation in a different language while pouring your blood on the ground and hoping you have enough magic power to not fail and or die that could very easily be stopped by even a second of hesitation- I'd fail.)

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.

—

*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

—

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

The scene from that one poll

Remember the poll about the MHA fanfiction scene that I mentioned wanting to show off because I did something that I haven't tried? Well a majority voted yes (As in two out of three people) so here it is!

If I miss a warning, comment and I'll fix it. Trigger warning for under the break: Blood, injury, mutilation, losing limbs

Word count: 976

The hand villain laughs, as though this was an expected, accepted thing. He's going to have this Nomu rip his wings out, and Kaito can't do much about it beyond grit his teeth as the pulling on his wing starts hurting more and more. He can take it. His wings have been ripped out hundreds of times, but those were all after his wings were burnt to nearly nothing. Never with his nerves undamaged by fire. The pulling starts taking his wing from its socket, which feels as painful as getting his arm dislocated. Maybe worse.

"You were overconfident, Hero!" The hand villain laughs, even as the display starts drawing attention from the other villains, the mutant-quirked villains with extra limbs reacting especially harshly, recoiling at the sight, a few even getting pale with nausea. Kaito's wing is starting to bleed around the base, the pain making him dig his nails into the ground, seeing as the Nomu pushed him down at some point. "You thought we didn't prepare for the unexpected? We had another Nomu!"

"Yeah, yeah…" Kaito groans, feeling the muscles that allow him to flap his wings starting to tear as the pulling persists. "Think you're all that because you could surprise me…" Kaito glares at the villain, even if the villain doesn't see it as scary given that Kaito is currently trapped by a Nomu. "Think you're the first to have my wings ripped out?"

Kaito can hear villains murmuring among themselves, debating trying to help him. Most were villains with quirks that gave them extra limbs, the ones who could imagine how they'd feel if their extra limbs were pulled from their bodies, even as slowly as what's happening to him. He can hear the moment his wing was pulled out far enough to reveal muscles that are supposed to remain inside him, not outside. His will to silently bear the pain is slipping with each moment, his eyes watering from the pain. If he wasn't used to terrible things happening to his wings, if his pain tolerance was any less, he'd be screaming by now. The arm on the side that is getting a wing ripped out has gone limp, not responding to his attempts to even curl his fingers. Guess muscles for his arm were damaged, too… or pulled out. He can still feel his wing, is still connected to it by a string of tendons, and that is the sight that had villains vomiting around the plaza.

"Fool," the Hand villain spits as the Nomu fully rips Kaito's wing out. The hero is panting against the pain, still glaring even as his wing is thrown somewhere behind him. "Does the other wing need to come out for you to realize how useless you are now? You don't have the ability to fly now." The hand villain is laughing as the Nomu moves to start ripping out Kaito's other wing. This isn't the first time someone has done it. Not even the first time a villain has done it. What part of that does this villain not get? Kaito will fly again.

This time, the pulling had him grunting, his teeth gritting together so tightly that he can feel a few cracking. The pain is much worse like this. At least the burning tended to kill nerves when he usually has to suffer through getting his wings ripped out. He can feel his fingers spasming, struggling to obey his desire to keep his fingers dug into the cement. A choked sound somewhere between a whine and a whimper escapes him, a surge of pain flooding him as something beyond his wing is pulled out of place, his tears dripping as his hand goes still, his entire arm limp as this wing takes more than the last with it.

He can hear a few villains passing out, and even the Hand villain looks unsettled from what Kaito can see through teary vision. It hurts, hurts, hurts… His back hurts where his wings are supposed to be, one ripped out and the other tearing a larger hole through him with every millimeter the wing is pulled out. He would be passed out from the pain if his tolerance was any less. He had skipped the screaming state and went right to sobbing and whimpering, his throat making soft coos in an attempt to soothe himself through the pain, a reaction none of his punishments ever had. He's sagging in the Nomu's grasp, aside from where his wing is still being pulled out of him. This isn't the first time this has happened, but… it hurts worse… than every time it happened before. His thoughts are lagging from the pain, even though he knows it is about to get much worse.

More thuds erupt as villains pass out, even the strongest stomached of them starting to empty their stomachs of their breakfasts, if they had any. The Hand villain isn't looking at him anymore, either too sickened by the display of his own creation or bored of watching a hero getting mutilated. Kaito can't tell. Kaito bites his tongue as the pain gets worse, much worse, as the Nomu starts finishing up with this wing. He can taste blood even as he feels blood running down his back, the trails of crimson feeling like a mockery of his wings. The Nomu finally pulls the wing out, and Kaito can hear the thud of bone on concrete as the wing is thrown carelessly. Based on the sound, Kaito assumes that the wing took his shoulder blade with it. It had… happened before. The Nomu shoves him forward, leaving him lying there, his back bleeding from the holes where his wings used to be. His vision starts going dark, one last whimper escaping him.

What am I going to forget when I rewind this?