Well, You Are An Amazing Writer, I'd Love To Speak Greek Mythology With You (aka Learn More About It

You called the negatives of my magic system intense. You have more... at least mine has a stage before death- yours has death first it seems, in reference to the divine magic stuff.

Very interesting! :>

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

I looked on the writing site I use, as a test, and I found this font and- Oh my skies is it nicer to look at compared to the font it had been in. Guess I am swapping all my things for my current WIP to this now. :>

i think i got the major ones

Reblog if its ok for your moots to stalk your blog and interact with everything you've posted.

what made you start your blog?

show us a picture of your handwriting?

From the 40 assorted questions

Here's both answers in one image!

I have this habit of saving things I want to reblog to my drafts to reblog at a later date, sometimes because I want to write thoughts to reblog things with, sometimes because I see something interesting and want to save it where it wouldn't be buried in my likes. But then it gets lost in my drafts so I'm just juggling I guess.

Hey guys let me tell you about advance fee scams

I hope y'all are familiar with these in this day and age, especially my artists out there, because they're incredibly common.

About half an hour ago I posted a drawing and tagged it #artists on tumblr, and very quickly received this comment.

My scam radar went off immediately, due to the generic blog name and lack of any emotion in the comment, but I decided it might be an entertaining venture so I dmed them. They asked for a drawing "of these", and sent me a random selfie. I got the details and told them it would be $15, and they promptly offered me $300. At this point I know it's a scam, but I play along for funsies and give them my paypal. Shortly, they send me this image for "confirmation" (I blocked out my email)

And they began to insist that I checked my email. I looked in my spam folder and found the following email.

This is fake. This is not a thing. And the "you're to refund the $200.00 back" is the scam. They send vaguely official-looking emails at you to "prove" that they sent you the money, then have you send them $200 (or however much the scam is for). Then, surprise surprise, you're out $200.

I continued to play along for a bit, and in the second email "Paypal" told me that I had to refund the $200 before they could "credit the $300 to my account", along with these lovely threats.

And yeah, it's silly. But it's not silly if you don't know and get scammed. So. Spread, please! And thank you very much to @mlaurel for the opportunity to get these screenshots.

I love writing one story, going to another story--which is inevitably in the middle of a scene with an entirely different vibe--and bouncing between the two like a ping pong ball until my brain settles on a third, completely unrelated story.

With the ides of march fast approaching we must be prepared

Please reblog to make sure everyone is equipped!

💙 Drawing of my friend, @nightmaricwriter character, Hades 💙 💙 💙 [Used a reference on Pinterest for the pose] 💙