I’ve Gone Insane And Started Writing A Cliche Fantasy Novel

out of curiousity, do you have a concept of what the marks of the last word look like? i find the description of the marks of the many below and of the wither mark really fascinating (also because. theoretically. they’re kind of up to interpretation like for example “three parallel lines” doesn’t specify whether they are vertical or horizontal *) and i was wondering if you had a similar visualisation of what val bears on her skin. (or also like, just a vibe)

* a second question has now occurred to me. do the descriptions only sound ambiguous to us, with no knowledge of prayer mark conventions, or could they actually be drawn differently based on the same description also in-universe? and if so, would every interpretation work, or is there a correct way and shrue should really just have been more precise in describing it?

No, zero idea! I did initially have the concept (which I think we partly recorded and maybe even left in a line or two nodding towards) that Val's marks 'flower' into evidence of the lies she tells - so they change shape as she's speaking and then become photographs or records or film-tape that peel from her in big sloughs of dead skin.

But poetic though that may be, you then have a character who's just sort of dropping giant distracting wads of dandruff in every single scene, which is sort of dramatically inhibiting.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE! This was an idea I had several months ago and having gotten the chance to work with all these amazing artists has been such an honour. Everyone did a tarot card inspired design based on the magnus archives fears and OH MY GOD they turned out so good.

feel free to check out each participants work and socials as listed! :D

The Lonely - @mariibeann

The Hunt - @oceanichymns

The Vast - @vpstrange

The Stranger - pencilshavings13 (IG)

The Flesh - @mintybagels

The Extinction - @wolfythewitch

The Desolation - swing_byforest (IG)

The Spiral - @mistspelt

The Dark - raven_and_rook (IG)

The Eye - @lailas-in-space

The Slaughter - eggbench (IG)

The Web - @mossiistars

The Buried - @teafromthemicrowave

The Corruption - @jouxlskaard

The End - @yelloartt

I'm a big fan of wizards-as-programmers, but I think it's so much better when you lean into programming tropes.

A spell the wizard uses to light the group's campfire has an error somewhere in its depths, and sometimes it doesn't work at all. The wizard spends a lot of his time trying to track down the exact conditions that cause the failure.

The wizard is attempting to create a new spell that marries two older spells together, but while they were both written within the context of Zephyrus the Starweaver's foundational work, they each used a slightly different version, and untangling the collisions make a short project take months of work.

The wizard has grown too comfortable reusing old spells, and in particular, his teleportation spell keeps finding its components rearranged and remixed, its parts copied into a dozen different places in the spellbook. This is overall not actually a problem per se, but the party's rogue grows a bit concerned when the wizard's "drying spell" seems to just be a special case of teleportation where you teleport five feet to the left and leave the wetness behind.

A wizard is constantly fiddling with his spells, making minor tweaks and changes, getting them easier to cast, with better effects, adding bells and whistles. The "shelter for the night" spell includes a tea kettle that brings itself to a boil at dawn, which the wizard is inordinately pleased with. He reports on efficiency improvements to the indifference of anyone listening.

A different wizard immediately forgets all details of his spells after he's written them. He could not begin to tell you how any of it works, at least not without sitting down for a few hours or days to figure out how he set things up. The point is that it works, and once it does, the wizard can safely stop thinking about it.

Wizards enjoy each other's company, but you must be circumspect about spellwork. Having another wizard look through your spellbook makes you aware of every minor flaw, and you might not be able to answer questions about why a spell was written in a certain way, if you remember at all.

Wizards all have their own preferences as far as which scripts they write in, the formatting of their spellbook, its dimensions and material quality, and of course which famous wizards they've taken the most foundational knowledge from. The enlightened view is that all approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, but this has never stopped anyone from getting into a protracted argument.

Sometimes a wizard will sit down with an ancient tome attempting to find answers to a complicated problem, and finally find someone from across time who was trying to do the same thing, only for the final note to be "nevermind, fixed it".

Or however it is this is supposed to work

can you imagine how freaky shark mermaids would be like unlike sharks, shark mermaids would have actual arms/hands and could rely on touching things with their hands to see if they’re prey rather than having to bite like sharks do. like youre just swimming in the ocean and suddenly you feel a strong grip on your leg, you freak the FUCK out because uh what????? the fuck??? youre swimming alone in the ocean??

a head pops out of the water, dorsal fin pointed from its back and it just points at you and says in a low whisper: “i thought you were a seal. please dont swim alone like this, im sorry i scared you i just wanted to see what you are” and then disappears back into the depth. what the fuck.

INFO POST

Welcome to queereads-brackets, a tournament blog where queer books face-off by genre! May your to-read list expand to unwieldy levels

Full spreadsheet of all submitted books from all tournaments

The current tournament is: Queer adult SFF spotlight (click to vote in most-recent round polls)

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Monstrous Regiment by Terry Prachett

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Queer fantasy

Queer adult SFF spotlight

Queer fiction free-for-all

Queer nonfiction

Queer historical fiction

Queer books from history

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Inspired by some other book poll blogs I really enjoy (check them out!) @haveyoureadthisqueerbook @haveyoureadthistransbook @queer-book-character-tournament @book--brackets

dash is dead im teleporting to the past

https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard?max_post_id=606474489540042752

HELLO everybody! I'm alive! And while I've been giving updates on my Patreon, the long story short is: Chapter 18 of my webcomic adaptation of The Hobbit is almost done, and will be posted....Soon. In the meantime: Check out my new website, retellingthehobbit.com, to see a full archive of all the chapters + art I've created on the side. :3.

Sol: *destroys the array, freeing the wildlife on Vertumna from being made fight and die against humans every Glow season and allowing Sym to live free of his programmed duty*

Elder Sol: Shame! Shaaaaame! Bad ending!

Sol: *watches their parents die, doesn’t form any real friendships, steals Vace from Nem via infidelity and is outraged when he cheats on them as well, lives their life as a soldier until they die young in their thirties*

Elder Sol: We lived a good life, didn’t we?

Me: No?????